In regards to the Amash amendment which would have de-funded the portion of the NSA earmarked to spying on American citizens (which was narrowly voted down last night), the office of the President’s Press Secretary [1] :
In light of the recent unauthorized disclosures, the President has said that he welcomes a debate about how best to simultaneously safeguard both our national security and the privacy of our citizens…we oppose the current effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of our Intelligence Community’s counterterrorism tools. This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process.
My irony alarm was so overloaded by this statement that I had to turn it off because all the neighbors were complaining.
[2]To show just how much the President values an informed, open, process, he sent the head of the NSA to brief members of Congress: [3]
NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander scheduled a last-minute, members-only briefing in response to the amendment, according to an invitation distributed to members of Congress this morning ...The invitation warned members that they could not share what they learned with their constituents or others. “The briefing will be held at the Top Secret/SCI level and will be strictly Members-Only,” reads the invite.
Ha! How’s that for open and informed?
I wonder why the administration which claims to want a debate is pursuing Edward Snowden with such vigor? It seems to me that he’s given a real shot in the arm to those of us who really would like an “open, informed and deliberative” discussion about the clearly unconstitutional surveillance programs that have been adopted in the wake of 9/11.
It’s absurd for the administration to claim they want an open debate, while they’ve been insisting for years that the programs were so secret that even courts cannot adjudicate the issue. The Electronic Frontier Foundation quotes the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals [4]:
At base, the government argues here that state secrets form the subject matter of a lawsuit, and therefore require dismissal, any time a complaint contains allegations, the truth or falsity of which has been classified as secret by a government official…According to the government’s theory, the Judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and limits of the law.”
Lastly, please remember this little gem [5] when the administration laughingly says they want a debate on the issue:
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chairman of the [House Judiciary] committee, said he was surprised that the programs had been kept secret for so long.
“Do you think a program of this magnitude gathering information involving a large number of people involved with telephone companies could be indefinitely kept secret from the American people?” Goodlatte asked.
“Well,” ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] general counsel Robert S. Litt said with a slight smile, “we tried.”
You can almost imagine him following up with, “And we would have gotten away with too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling Snowden kid!”
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