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Senator Bernie Sanders Asks NSA If Agency Is Spying On Congress
cold fjord writes with this excerpt from Fox News: "A U.S. senator on Friday pressed the National Security Agency on whether its controversial spying practices extend to monitoring members of Congress. 'Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials?' Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asked in a letter to NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander released from the senator's office. Sanders, a self-described 'democratic socialist,' defines spying as monitoring the phone calls, emails and internet traffic of elected officials."
It's for their protection. Don't the congressmen need to be safe like the rest of us?
I've debated many 'True Patriots' before. The type of mindset that the NSA probably attracts. A common mode of thought for them is that the US must be protected from all enemies, forign and domestic - and that 'domestic' includes members of congress who support 'un-American' ideas. Democracy is too important to be entrusted to a democratic process.
Incidentally, the comments on the fox news site are/were a bit amusing: on the one hand there's a "democratic socialist" asking important questions that might "impeach Obama", but on the other hand he's still a '"democratic socialist" so he's wrong by default. But hey, at least we have Ted Cruz to assure us this question is one “millions of Americans would like answered.”
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
I think there is something deeper to this. Even with no evidence that the NSA is spying on congress, he can still put them on a very difficult dilemma. The problem is as follows. If the NSA says yes, then they will admit to spying on the rulers of the US and opening up the possibility of blackmail implications, but best of all turning Congress against the NSA. If the NSA says no, then he can ask the NSA why they spying on the American public and not Congress when no laws should be applied differently.
My guess is that the NSA will reply something like, "We do not separate data between regular citizens nor congress men, but we further do not actively seek out data on any congressman or government official."