Edward Snowden is the leaker but Clapper lied to the senate.

"Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said Saturday that the NSA had initiated a Justice Department investigation into who leaked the information — an investigation supported by intelligence officials in Congress. Snowden, whose full name is Edward Joseph Snowden, ontracted for the NSA said he understands the risks of disclosing the information, but that he felt it was important. “I intend to ask for asylum from any countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of global privacy,” Snowden told the Post from Hong Kong, where he has been staying. The Guardian was the first to publicly identify Snowden. Both media organizations made his name public with his consent."  Washpost

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Yes.  This man broke the law, but isn't lying to the senate also a crime?  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/intelligence-leaders-push-back-on-leakers-media/2013/06/09/fff80160-d122-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html

 

 

Comments

[Tyler]

Fled to Hong Kong as well. Good move, else he'd probably commit suicide by shooting himself in the back of the head twice before throwing himself out a window and breaking all the fingers in both hands.

[eakens]

This thing stinks to high heaven. For example, I read that an amendment to FISA in 2008 to allow PRISM. If that is the case, then why was Microsoft added in 2007? All the companies seem to be quoting the same thing, "direct access" -- pretty obvious the canned responses were not coincidence but rather coordinated.

Of course, this isn't that ground breaking as it was pretty obvious through ECHELON that the snooping was taking place, it was just previously thought that the UK was doing the snooping on the US, and the US on the UK to get around the law on spying on our own citizens.

The saddest revelation of all however comes by way of the fact that Iran is the single highest source of signal interception. To me, that directly implicates Israeli involvement in this whole scheme, through a number of their companies, including Amdocs which maintains most of the back-end SW for US telecom carriers.

[Paul Escobar]

Mr. Lang,

Someone needs to subject Dianne Feinstein to a Cylon detector test.

When the Clapper fib/clip was put to her, she emitted a loud beep followed by incomprehensible gibberish...BSOD on live TV.

[Peter Brownlee]

According to WashPost “For me, it is literally — not figuratively — literally gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities,” Clapper said."

Will be interesting to see what details (if any) of the "huge, grave damage" (!) sees the light of day.

Let's hope Mr Clapper's guts are in shipshape condition by the time the Senate and House hearings roll along...

[no one]

Will the Chinese give him sanctuary? What will Snowdon give the Chinese in exchange?

[euclidcreek]

“Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth stupid fumbling.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

[jerseycityjoan]

What, exactly, do we have to fear if we would stop all this tomorrow -- I mean the comprehensive, grab-everything approach to whatever information we can access?

Is it possible we see enough lives saved and bad actions stopped to justify all these goings-on?

[The Twisted Genius]

At least Snowden has a more realistic assessment of his current predicament than Manning ever had. He's concerned that the CIA will pay off the Triads to whack him. I guess that's what the USG means when it says it "may seek any remedy available to enforce" the security agreement Snowden signed.

Judging by the reaction of Congress, except for Rand Paul, I don't think Clapper is worried about his bold faced lie to the senate. BTW, Clapper ought to do something about that peach fuzz on his face and the perpetual scowl. Looks like he's auditioning for the part of Ming the Merciless.

[jonst]

From the golden oldies collection for General Clapper (a name out of Dickens, if there ever was one)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/world/the-struggle-for-iraq-weapons-search-iraqis-removed-arms-material-us-aide-says.html

To TTG....he's got the look down, TTG, but he's got to work on the voice. Then he'll be perfect. THat faux-sonorous sounding voice

[Peter Brownlee]

"The Peerless Ming has observed that lesser beings demand domination, and if domination is not imposed upon them by others they will impose it on themselves. Unfortunately, earth's leaders persist in offering pusillanimous and unbecoming justifications for their natural exercise of domination. In the age of the Supernal Ming's reign, the exercise of power will require no justification. Today however, your primitive rulers' understanding of power is best described by one of your poets: 'He hath veiled the Crown and hid the Sceptre [...] He hath changed the fashion of the lies that cloak his will."

https://www.facebook.com/notes/emperor-ming-the-merciless/earth-prepares-for-the-reign-of-ming-the-merciless/10152212132010195

[samuelburke]

Feinsteins response was a classic.

[marcus]

And this is under the tutelage of a Constitutional law professor? When a real authoritarian figure takes over what rights will remain?

To bad they are not targeting people buying ammo, we would see this thing shut down in a heart beat--or are they?

[Norbert M. Salamon]

Colonel Lang:

"Yes, he broke the law"

But he defended the Constitution, thus the law should not count for it has to be derivable from Constitutional Authority. Without doubt, you, Sir, could list all the appropriate amendments on which NSA transgressed.

[Norbert M. Salamon]

Sir
:

President Obama should go on National Television and state:

Ï am an East Berliner of 1950

[The beaver]

Clapper used to work for BAH
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/booz-allen-hamilton-edward-snowden

Small world !!!

[Margaret Steinfels]

If this system is so all-encompassing, how come Tameran Tsarnaev wasn't uncovered? He was on the FBI's radar screen, made phone calls to Chechen, browsed the internet for Islamic sites, etc?

[João Carlos]

That is a very good question. If the chinese government want to piss US governement, they can give him sanctuary. But I really have no idea what China wants, I will just get some popcorn and watch the events...

[Babak Makkinejad]

You can gather all the data of all the world and subject it to sophisticated pattern-matching and data mining techniques but none of those obviates the need for actual human beings with a modicum of intelligence to sift through all of that and make a decision.

There is no knowledge in raw data, there is no Wisdom in raw Knowledge, and there are precious few who understand any of that.

Reminds me the story I heard of a fellow who was arrested by SAVAK and extensively tortured to find out where he had hidden the "machine guns".

It turned out that there were, in fact, no machine guns - the fellow was using an idiom in Perisan "So and So talks (as fast as) like a machine gun."

Evidently a human "pattern-macther" (a.k.a. an informer) had ovberheard him somewhere and had reported him to SAVAK.

And then there was my elementary school teacher who was arrested since in the back of his automobile were observed a bunch of memiographed papers (our tests) and his son's black toy hand-gun.

These tincidents may seem funny now but when one is caught by the national security apparatus of any state it is quite dreadful.

[The beaver]

Wow!!!He had so much power just as an analyst working for a contractor. :(

{Any analyst at any time can target anyone. ... Where those communications will be picked up depends on the range of the sensor networks and the authorities that that analyst is empowered with. Not all analysts have the ability to target everything. But I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone: From you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the president if I had a personal email.}

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense.html

[The beaver]

Looks like he was working undercover for the CIA at the US mission to the UN in Geneva
http://www.rts.ch/info/regions/geneve/4973604-l-adresse-genevoise-de-la-taupe-des-renseignements-americains.html

http://genevalunch.com/2013/06/10/whistleblower-snowdens-geneva-days-subject-of-speculation/

[turcopolier]

The Beaver et al

As I have written any times the whole process of improving coordination of analysis and collection since 9/11 has acted to empower people like Manning and this man by tearing down barriers that denied them access to huge swaths of data. pl

[DH]

Colonel, do you think the ultimate power of the NSA, and data mining in general, will be self-limiting in the long run?

[Fred]

I believe because they were not actually looking for Tsarnaev nor anyone like him. Now that they have a crime to research they will connect everyone he ever called. Then they will claim, without providing evidence, that they stopped another Boston from happening.

[Rocketrepreneur]

Hey guys,

What do you all think of the claim that I've seen from some quarters that this guy was obviously a spy because he fled to China (saying it's obviously an Aldrich Ames redux)? Personally, I think that Snowden as a whistleblower fits the data better than Snowden as a spy, but I'd be curious what you all think about it?

I mean, if I were in his shoes, Hong Kong was probably the best among crappy alternatives of where to flee first if he was starting from Hawaii. If he had been out on the East Coast somewhere, he could've tried fleeing directly to Iceland, but from Hawaii, almost all direct flights lead either to the US, to countries with strong extradition agreements with the US, or to Hong Kong... or am I missing something?

~Jon

[marcus]

Be interesting to hear opinions on this: He defended the Constitution therefore the law against Snowden's disclosure is null.