If a Congressman has to ask if youâre spying on Congress, then your commitment to transparency with Congress is an obvious failure.
Sounds like NSA transparency is more akin to: âBut Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.â
Thereâs only one thing wrong with that reasoning:
Iâm sorry, that information is classified.
Iâd like to think there are a few hundred sour stomachs in Congress this weekend, caused by the realization that a lot of extramarital affairs, drug habits, and dead hookers have been extensively documented.
On the upside: Currently Members of Congress only have the same privacy protections as all US persons, rather than some kind of elevated privacy akin to TSAâs âTrusted Travelerâ joke program. Thatâs currently. Iâm reasonably sure that by the end of this calendar year congress will have been led to believe that they are exempt from NSA spying, and a certain 1% actually will be exempt from NSA spying.
Tiered privacy, coming soon to a democracy near you. âHow much Privacy can you affordâ˘â
I hope this means congress will work toward better privacy protection for all of us instead of better privacy protection for members of congress.
Were they sure to place the âbeware of the leopardâ sign on the disused lavatory? (makes all the difference)
Iâm so tired of this blatant prevarication. If any of us tried these kinds of responses in court, weâd be charged with contempt and jailed so quickly we wouldnât have time to pick up a glass of water.
Will anyone in Congress have the cojones to call them out on this crap?
yea just like they are working towards equal opportunities and fair pay for everyoneâŚoh right yeah, no they wonât.
I am completely fine by this. The only way to effect change is to have those in power feel as threatened as we are. Iâm sure a lot of these people remember the kind of stuff hoover pulled.
Of course having said that Iâm sure all that will be done is congress getting an exemption from spying.
NSA is fully committed to transparency with Congress.
Except they have already established a pattern of lying to Congress, and this statement is false if itâs false. Whatâs the opposite of a paradox? A tautology? One of those.
And didnât we recently have a President who was impeached for lying to Congress? Is it therefore safe to assume that the Director of the NSA is more powerful than the President?
Thatâs like a headline. No.
Speaking of cojones, the quoted NSA statement accidentally left out the loud âGLONNNNG!â at the end.
The sound of ginormous brass ones clanging as they walked away.
So, if I should call my Congress critter to complain of the NSAâs violation of my rights, the NSA will collect the metadata (and, quite possibly the actual content) of my communication. Nice one, NSA! Youâve create a freakinâ informational tesseract!
Iâm disappointed at the eye-in-the-pyramid image used to illustrate this post. I mean, youâre saying that weâre being constantly watched by a shadowy, unseen conspiracy thatâs malevolently pulling the strings of government and callously crushing innocent peopleâs lives in order to maintain their dominion.
So, Cory, why tar the poor Illuminati by dragging them into a post about such an evil organization?
So I would go a step further and require cell companies to publish the metadata of elected officials.
And those who are suspicious will be shown their browsing, phone and email history for the past 10 years and reminded about the possibility of future âleaksâ.
Nah, then theyâll know for sure what the stakes are. I imagine theyâll be shown nothing and reminded about the possibility of future leaks.
Well, there is always the possibility of a couple of Critters being sacrificed âpour encourager les autresâ. A couple of Senators going down in flames of ignominy would be more than enough to cow most of them.
Of course, the NSA can also just make shit up. If they can tap everything they can likely do some amazing photoshopping, plant some incriminating things in our email history and any amount of other shittery.
The last several times theyâve been asked questions like that in Congress theyâve turned out to have been lying. If anyone believes them this time, Iâve got a rich nigerian uncle who needs to get his money out of the country Iâd like to introduce him to.
It worked for a few years for videotape rental records, after Judge Bork turned out not to have rented anything as embarassing as his judicial decisions.
As far as âare NSA officials lying to Congressâ goes, it depends on what your definition of âisâ is.
