
Members of Congress Go Silent Over Prior False Testimony On Surveillance - mtgx
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/06/12/an-inconvenient-truth-members-of-congress-go-silent-over-prior-false-testimony-on-surveillance/
======
mindcrime
Well, at least one member of Congress is working to make a big stink out of
the perjury issue:

[http://hotair.com/archives/2013/06/12/amash-to-clapper-
perju...](http://hotair.com/archives/2013/06/12/amash-to-clapper-perjury-is-a-
serious-crime/)

~~~
Afforess
Amash has been a great representative for Michigan. I'm extremely lucky to
have him as my house representative. He campaigned on complete transparency
and posts writeups and explanations for _every single_ decision or vote he
makes. I'm not completely sold on his libertarian views, but these days I
value a politician who doesn't lie to me over their political ideology.

~~~
Taylorious
As a Michigan resident I second this. I don't support his politics really, but
he is the perfect example of what a politician is supposed to do for his
constituents. I often visit his FB page to see what he has been up to. He
always has very thorough summaries of what he voted on and why he voted the
way he did. Simply fantastic. I can't imagine how he deals with his slithering
counterparts on a day to day basis.

------
latj
It is a dangerous game they are playing when the U.S. Congress knowingly
allows lies to go into the record.

[http://www.propublica.org/article/defenders-of-nsa-
surveilla...](http://www.propublica.org/article/defenders-of-nsa-surveillance-
web-omit-most-of-mumbai-plotters-story)

~~~
freddealmeida
Far more dangerous when American citizens allow it as well.

~~~
prawks
Now would be a great time to write to your Congressmen to inform them of your
(and your friends'/neighbors') displeasure.

~~~
enraged_camel
I'm very interested in whether writing to Congresspeople actually does
anything.

Have there been any studies done that show any correlation between number of
calls/letters a politician's office receives, and how they actually vote on
bills proposed?

~~~
shpxnvz
In my experience, no, it really does not. Go ahead and try it anyway, though,
you may find the process enlightening. There's nothing quite like writing a
careful and reasoned argument only to receive an instant canned response that
patronizingly talks down to you and simultaneously supports all possible views
on an issue.

I've contacted my state and national representatives dozens of times over the
years and have found that methods of contact seems to get noticed by the
staffers (who are in most cases the only ones who will ever know that you
contacted the office) in the following order:

Email - generally ignored or deleted, may or may not even get a canned
response. I've heard state legislature staffers claim that they can get
upwards of 10K emails a day about certain issues - there is simple no way they
have the capacity to sort through them even if they wanted to.

Letter - a little better as someone actually has to open the letter and stick
the form letter response into the envelope. At least the politician's staff
get an idea of how many people are for or against an issue this way.

Phone call - even better. You talk to someone and are an actual person to
them. In most cases they will claim to actually record a position (for or
against) to be tallied for the politician.

In-person visit - best of all. Nothing gets the point across like crowding
their office with bodies. In my experience you are unlikely to get to speak
with the actual politician, who often will hide away from their office when
contentious issues are up for vote so as not to interface with the public.
Some are better than others here, obviously.

This is my experience only, perhaps you're politicians behave differently. But
I am quite sure about one thing - sending email is a waste of time and gives
you an easy excuse to think you've done your share. If you care enough to want
to get in touch, at the very minimum pick up the phone and call.

ETA: I've also typically seen that regardless of the amount of pressure
applied by the public for one side of an issue, nearly every politician will
simply vote the party line anyways. They know where their bread is buttered,
and won't go against party leadership. I've watched legislators look over at a
senior party member and be signalled which way to vote when their turn comes
up. I don't think anything I've done or said to my representatives has had the
slightest impact on their opinion or voting record. That's just how the game
is played.

~~~
xradionut
You forgot to write large checks to them and their party.

~~~
Zigurd
Supreme court certified: Money _is_ speech. The very best kind.

------
fnordfnordfnord
House, Senate Intel. Cmtes. Receive NSA Briefings
[http://www.c-span.org/Events/House-Senate-Intel-Cmtes-
Receiv...](http://www.c-span.org/Events/House-Senate-Intel-Cmtes-Receive-NSA-
Briefings/10737440047-2/)

In which Keith Alexander claims to have stopped "dozens" of terrorist attacks,
and that too much disclosure will "cause" attacks. Mike Rogers (R-Mich) and
Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md) then go on to confess to the world that the US
hires lowly high school dropouts, and gives them high security top secret
clearance; but in the next breath claims that you shouldn't believe anything
Snowden says because he is a high school dropout who can't hold a job. Then
they go on to imply that Snowden is working with the Chinese. Claim that
whistleblower laws would've protected Snowden (I bet Thomas Drake and Bill
Binney might beg to differ). The two congressmen sound more like used car
salesmen to me, and tell what sounds like more lies, half-truths, and cute
word games. Rogers claims "at least 10 terror attacks averted"

~~~
jbooth
Here's how you avert a terrorist attack:

1) Find some idiot talking about how he'd like to blow something up on his
phone

2) Approach idiot, try to sell him explosives

3) If he's dumb enough to say "ok" out loud at any point, then slap on the
cuffs, you foiled a terrorist attack, you're officially a hero.

It's a numbers game.

~~~
duncan_bayne
> 1) Find some idiot talking about how he'd like to blow something up on his
> phone

That could be me after a day of working with certain legacy systems.

~~~
victorf
"Terrorist and black-hat hacker Duncan Bayne was arrested yesterday after
posting his bombing plot on a forum for hackers. Lawmakers state that he never
would have been caught without the aid of PRISM, and drafted new legislature
allowing body scans at entrances to legacy systems. Next up: why gay marriage
is going to destroy traditional families and why you should be concerned
exclusively with preventing it and not care about, say, the Fourth Amendment."

------
bane
If you ever think you can't be powerful, if even for a moment, remember this.

A highschool dropout has been, for a moment, more powerful than the DNI, the
Director the NSA, the members of Congress who knew about this and the
President. He's stirred the lords of nations and brought fear to the fear
makers.

Was he right? I can't speak to that, but was he powerful? I can say yes.

------
mindcrime
OK, in light of the Snowden reveal, how is it that none of the press seemed to
find this revelation and link it with everything else, and report it? A former
FBI counter-terrorism guy went on CNN, and admitted that they have everything,
including content, over a month ago.

[http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/13/do-americans-love-big-
brot...](http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/13/do-americans-love-big-brother/)

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://rt.com/usa/bill-
binney-nsa-leaks-546/&strip=1)

~~~
grappler
People say lots of things, all the time. Nothing gets attention like a leaked
set of Top Secret files.

------
salimmadjd
The moment the "House of Representative" changed from representing the people
to representing just a few we should have realized our Democracy is changing
to an Oligarchy. So let's stop pretending and stop using "Democracy" in our
conversation.

~~~
rosser
The US is not a "Democracy", and never has been. It's a Republic.

You conflate those two things at your peril.

~~~
mtgx
Which "democracy" _isn 't_ a republic? I don't think any country actually has
direct/pure democracy. They are all republics and have representatives and
Parliaments.

That being said, US could use a whole lot more "democracy" into its system. I
don't think the delegate system works very well. Gerrymandering has also been
abused for decades.

~~~
rosser
And that's exactly why it's important to make the distinction. Calling the US
a "Democracy" suggests the power lies with the people. It doesn't.

~~~
mindcrime
_Calling the US a "Democracy" suggests the power lies with the people. It
doesn't._

It's supposed to, and if it doesn't, that only tells us that things have gone
very wrong. But you don't have to have direct democracy (as opposed to
representative democracy) to adhere to the idea that the ultimate political
power rests in the hands of the people.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Supposed to, according to whom? In the original constitution, members of the
Senate were chosen by State legislatures; the president was chosen by the
members of the Electoral College who were not simply tokens, but really had
the choice. The vote was restricted to white male landowners.

Most importantly, the point of having a constitutional republic is the
constitution protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

------
tlrobinson
_" In other words, they were all lying to the public and, under our new
relativistic world, a lie told by everyone is treated as the truth."_

That sounds terrifyingly like something out of "1984".

------
ISL
"Least untrue" \- perhaps clocks do strike thirteen.

Doubleplus ungood.

~~~
dsuth
"No sir. Not wittingly."

WTF is that! Synonymous with "No sir. Mostly." These weasel words are
ridiculous, and the fact that they stand up in a congressional hearing, is
mind-boggling.

------
ccarter84
I'd be quite surprised if they went at this guy with anywhere near the
ferocity they went after that idiotic IRS chief's testimony.

~~~
protomyth
I agree to a point[1]. The establishment Republicans will give the NSA a pass
along with most Democrats (no waves for our guy). The younger Republicans are
going after all three current scandals pretty hard (Benghazi[2], IRS, NSA).
Plus, there is the distraction of the Immigration reform bill[3] to contend
with.

1) although FBI Director Robert Mueller got some very nasty questions on NSA
and IRS today (Jun-13-2013)

2) this is going to keep coming back until there is some clarity of the
timeline

3) I wish the Senate was working on something to fix immigration instead of
crafting a bill that won't pass the House and will give talking points for
2014

------
fnordfnordfnord
Some are complicit. The ones in the know can't say anything without becoming
leakers themselves.

------
vidarh
Somewhat off topic, I'm trying to find a source for the supposed Lenin
quotation ("A Lie told often enough becomes the truth") as I wanted to see the
context. Anyone know what the source might be?

There are a slew of repeats of the quotation online, yet none of them appears
to include a cite. I've tried searching various archives of Lenins works, and
wider archives like marxists.org that might have included references to it by
other authors but have come up empty.

It could very well be hard to find because the common wording of it is
paraphrased, though.. But it would be rather hilariously ironic if it is
misattributed, and so providing its own proof...

------
ig1
The question has to be asked, were there members of congress or the executive
who were aware of the perjury but failed to take any action about it ?

------
ChuckMcM
My Grandfather (and Jonathan's great uncle I believe), who was US Attorney,
would seriously approve of the questions Jonathan raises.

The way to move this forward is to put these folks on the spot with HR 2014
and other amendments which would curtail the powers that have been given to
the Intelligence agencies under the guise of the war on terror.

------
samwyse
Please sign my petition to prosecute James R. Clapper Jr., director of
national intelligence, for perjury in his denial of spying on Americans.
[http://wh.gov/l3gRA](http://wh.gov/l3gRA)

------
pvdm
"war is peace freedom is slavery ignorance is strength"

We spy on you to keep you free.

------
bobwaycott
> _Our leaders have embraced that core view of Lenin that “A Lie told often
> enough becomes the truth.”_

Excuse me, but _core view_? Injecting the supposed words of Lenin, sans any
context or source attribution at all, from which one might be able to
understand the purpose behind the words, and the author wants to throw this in
at the end and call it Lenin's _core view_?

Bullshit. That's akin to saying Jesus' core view was "My god, my god, why have
you forsaken me?"

------
ttrreeww
I still remember Larry page's denial and Mark Zuckerberg's denial.

We can never trust them again.

~~~
deelowe
There's no proof to suggest they knew otherwise. Anything stated thus far is
speculation. All that's been shown as "evidence" is a slide with company logos
on it and some statements from the NSA which claims to collect "Facebook"
data, which could really mean anything. Plus Google openly submitted a request
to allow them to publicly disclose the number, type, and scope of NSLs it
receives. I have more reason to doubt the Govt than these other companies.

Also, given the name "PRISM," isn't it pretty obvious how this program worked?
Think about it... What does a prism do?

Meanwhile, Verizon and ATT have been completely silent and government
representatives are making up new definitions for the term perjury.

~~~
uvdiv
_Also, given the name "PRISM," isn't it pretty obvious how this program
worked? Think about it... What does a prism do?_

It's obvious a spy agency isn't trying to communicate how their program works
to everyone who stumbles across their codename.

~~~
wavefunction
They always seem to love clever acronyms that are tangentially related to
whatever it deals with, like USAPATRIOT Act is actually about how to not be a
good US patriot.

