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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."
The NSA has already shown a willingness to lie to Congress, what does he expect? They're an equal opportunity usurper.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It's for their protection. Don't the congressmen need to be safe like the rest of us?
I mean if they are "exempt" from being spied on it seems logical the "terrorists" would become members of congress and avoid being spied on.
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.
Sorry bud but you don't know who Bernie Sanders is if you make a comment like that.
And if so I hope they either:
a. Admit it.
b. Deny it then get caught lying about it.
Either way the fallout would be both spectacular and likely productive from a citizen standpoint. If either a or b happens and it gets swept under the rug, then at least we can be certain that the United States is no longer run by the United States government. Sometimes I wonder if I will one day be answering the question, "Where were you when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were permanently suspended?"
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At the very least, blanket metadata capture means the answer is absolutely, positively, unrepentantly YES.
"Oh no... he found the
now that HE might be being spied on he suddenly cares?
Congress has constitutional protection from the executive branch, so spying on them would likely be a major problem, even if spying on the rest of us is "legal". Also, lying to Congress is frowned upon. I think this puts Alexander in a real bind if he has to sign a letter to Congress.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
One of the things Bernie did worth noting is clearly stating what he means as spying:
Part of me thinks he has evidence of them engaging in something like that, much like Wyden asking Clapper about the wholesale collection effort. But with the clarification, and coming in written form, it makes a 'Not Wittingly' answer less liely (granted, Wyden did forewarm Clapper of the question, and did give his office time to change their answer afterwards).
If you're going to give this idiotic organization an unlimited budget with zero oversight you reap what you sow.
In an ideal system, the NSA would be by law required to wiretap all public officials and directly publish their communications to the Library of Congress with a daily transcript of "dirty conversations" sent to the FBI and appropriate OIG for human analysis. Given how Congress operates these days, and how successful they've been at pushing back on FBI attempts (post ABSCAM) to reign in congressional corruption, part of me while deeply opposed to what the NSA has been caught doing wants to see the NSA ordered to go Stasi on them.
Multiple questions never work when you deal with spooks. If the answer to any part of the question is no, then they will simply answer no.
It can be very annoying when you work with spooks. They will look you carefully in the eyes, consider what you asked and and after a few seconds answer with a one liner, that never actually tells you anything.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
More importantly, why is a member of Congress more important that I am? So it is bad to spy on me but REALLY BAD to spy on someone just because they are elected? Fucking elitism at its finest.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
> so spying on them would likely be a major problem
With the current NSA guidelines, as revealed by Edward Snowden's revelations, any communications with foreign nationals would automatically be susceptible to monitoring. So it's certainly a common practice with the pervasive, wholesale telephone and email monitoring currently in place: Congress is _expected_ to speak with foreign governments as part of diplomacy, trade agreements, investigating treaties. and on behalf of foreign families of their constituents.
Whether more targeted monitoring of Congress is done by the NSA is another matter. The NSA's charter specifically forbids them from domestic intelligence, that's the role of the FBI. And for human assets in foreign intelligence, not direct communications monitoring, that's the CIA. But of course, with the new "Homeland Security" overseeing all the group's efforts, the lines have become not only blurred but deliberately concealed. When the responsibilities are deliberately overlapped and merged "to aid communication", it puts the tools of one group for specific uses in the hands of their supervisors who may have quite different agendas or guidelines. I'd look very, very carefully look at "Homeland Security", at the people who are expecte merge and organize the data and precisely what they are ordering or being allowed access to.
They've managed to keep out of most of this NSA exposure. But as an "organizing" agency for all the other departments, they're in a very dangerous position to weave those threads together into a much tighter cocoon of monitoring at every level.
A member of Congress or the Senate on a day to day basis will deal with 100x the sensitive material you will. Furthermore there's the question of who gets access to the records & can they abuse it to blackmail govt. officials or otherwise effect policy decisions.
So yes you are not a special snowflake.
The NSA isn't spying on them to get that information. My point still stands, the NSA shouldn't be spying on anyone without a valid warrant signed by a judge, just as the constitution clearly states. That they are elected doesn't make them better than you or I, and their outrage should be the same regardless of who is being spied upon without a warrant.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
He might want to ask Edward Snowden. If he really wants to know.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
So yes, spying on anyone without a warrant is bad, but spying on government officials is worse.
According to the FISA courts, all warrants are valid by virtue of having been issued by the government for an alleged national security purpose.
What, no love for the USPS?
Are you not up to date?
The USPS is spying on you.
They photograph and archive the metadata (i.e. envelope info) of every single piece of mail.
...isn't congress (supposed to be) made up of regular ordinary US citizens? Hasn't a federal judge ruled that the NSA's spying techniques are legal? So what's the news here?
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.