Clapper changes his story on false statements to Congress on bulk collection

[IDemo]

Source: MSNBC

It’s a problem when the director of National Intelligence can’t seem to get his story straight.

Speaking Thursday at the Intelligence and National Security Summit in Washington, D.C., James Clapper said that the intelligence community has not willfully violated the law, an assertion which documents and information from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden contradict.

When Clapper laid out seven principles of professional ethics for the intelligence community, he said integrity became particularly important to him, “when I got accused of lying to congress because of a mistake … I had to answer on the spot about a specific classified program in a general, unsecure setting.”

But last year, in an interview with NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell, Clapper took a different approach to his tense March 2013 exchange with Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden. When Wyden, a Democrat, asked if the NSA gathers “any type of data at all on millions of Americans,” Clapper responded “No,” and “not wittingly.” After a Guardian report contradicted that statement, Clapper said he gave the “least untruthful” response to a complicated question.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/james-clapper-changes-his-story-false-statements-congress-bulk-collection

[strawberries]

1. Clapper?

Isn't that a decease?

[sakabatou]

9. No, it's an electrical box

[strawberries]

34. lol

you are a riot!!!!

[Gman]

2. Least untruthful?

How about most severe lying to Congress charge?

[IDemo]

5. Like the granite tablet said:

thou shalt not be the most untruthful.

[Scuba]

3. Why has he not been fired? Why has he not been prosecuted?

[FiveGoodMen]

6. We voted in the wrong people.

[Maedhros]

11. On this issue, "not as bad as the Republicans" turns out to be "just as bad as the Republicans."

On some other issues as well.

[Psephos]

12. Ask Jon Corzine. n/t

[xocet]

25. Excellent question.... n/t

[merrily]

4. Remind me why Clapper should trouble his pretty head to get his story straight?

Last edited Wed Mar 14, 2018, 01:24 AM - Edit history (1)

Discrepancies in a story matter a lot when a so-called common criminal, or alleged common criminal, gets arrested, is scared brainless and is grilled for hours by cops playing games and maybe not providing meals or cigarettes for long periods. At trial, those discrepancies will be presented as evidence of guilt. As a result that person might be sentenced to prison, even death.

It's entirely different when a high administration official who has sworn to uphold the Constitution perjures himself while testifying before Congress about massive violations of the 4th amendment. That results only in DUers accusing Greenwald of being a libertarian or working as a writer for the purpose of (Oh, the humanity!) earning a living. Why on earth would Clapper care what DUers might post about Greenwald?

[RoccoR5955]

7. You can spot a liar

by the person changing the story.
Crapper.. I mean Clapper is most certainly lying, and under oath, no less.
Please explain why he is not in the Crowbar Hotel?

[merrily]

15. Because he gave the least untruthful answer. Or not.

And we must trust him on that because national security. And terra.

[Aerows]

22. Everybody else that works in

well, anything really, and has a high level position would have been given the boot, indicted and had their funding slashed.

Apparently the NSA isn't all that damn good at their jobs because ISIL flourished.

I say that with irony because I am going with their own moniker that they have anything to do with the National Security of the US and aren't a bunch of over paid idiots looking at the latest porn.

I am disgusted by this, and I am not even sorry one bit when I think this group of idiots need to be defunded. Whatever they do isn't very damn useful, that is for certain, unless you call "getting in trouble" useful.

[stockbrokers]

8. clapper changes

but speaking Thursday at the intelligence and National security .....

[url=http://EasyPcInvestor.com]What your stock broker doesn’t want you to see.[/url]

[merrily]

16. ?

[azureblue]

10. and if you or I lied

to Congress or a court, we'd be thrown in jail right away. So why is he running around loose? Are his acceptable?

[red dog 1]

13. Calls for greater transparency, accountability, and the protection of civil liberties...

..amount to demands for an "immaculate collection," he said to laughter.
(From the OP)

Personally, I don't see the humor.
These Intelligence agencies are getting away with murder.
There is no real Congressional oversight.

Since they have multi-billion-dollar "black-budgets' to do whatever they want, and since most of what they do is classified as "top secret", even the Congressional Intelligence committees that are supposed to provide "oversight" know very little about what they actually do. in secret, with OUR tax dollars.

Perhaps Senator Wyden should call for a new bi-partisan Congressional investigation into the entire Intelligence Community.

http://www.truthout.org/archive/item/85315-congressman-holt-calls-for-next-church-committee-on-cia#14110700148661&action=collapse_widg/

[red dog 1]

14. K&R...Thanks for posting, IDemo

[bobthedrummer]

17. If you know your history the only thing that is new are the dual use technologies-there were never

any real reforms of the "national security" community after Watergate-and now we are led by fascists and their "achievement" of full spectrum dominance.

[Javaman]

18. Clap on, Clap off. The Clapper. nt

[nilram]

19. Lying again. "On the spot"? He received the questions in advance.

I'm trying to have some sympathy for the guy, but now I got none.

[Aerows]

21. He's an idiot

running an organization that has gone amok and can't even do what their supposed jobs are because they are too busy investigating everything that could save their own hides. Which, at this point, shouldn't be saved in the first place.

[merrily]

23. He's getting paid (our $$), lying, no accountability. Maybe we're the idiots?

[Aerows]

27. We ARE!

If we let this shit go on.

[merrily]

30. Be serious,

what can we really do about it?

Blood in the streets?

How can we even plan any kind of concerted action?

That's when the NSA would get effective. All those cameras on the streets and in buildings, all the listening capabilities from inside buildings to the outside and vice versa, all the phone tapping, all the cell phone locating capabilities, all the internet snooping. They'd be all over us.

[Aerows]

32. I don't know

And that is what scares me. We are ever closer to slipping to the point of no return, and it is as plain of a historical script as can be.

Maybe I'm selfish, but I'm pissed that this is happening when I am just young and healthy enough to realize that I'm probably going to live watching most of it play out, but too old to do anything about it as it DOES play out.

Your guess is as good as mine. I vote, and I try to make my voice heard to my Congressional leaders, but frankly, between lobbyists and Congress we are screwed unless there are new separations between money and government implemented.

Do you have ideas?

[merrily]

33. Follow the money.

I used to think tax strike, but then I realized that would shut down government, OASDI, welfare, Medicaid, Medicare. Consequences too heinous to contemplate.

Stop buying anything but barest necessities. But, what about small businesses?

Whatever anyone is going to do, it has to start with fundraising because just getting the word to everyone is going to take money.

Next, go local. Forget about the federal government. Focus on your precinct, your neighborhood, your school board, your city hall, etc.

We need our own think tanks for planning, etc., but we sure can't afford them

The money is always the Catch 22.

[Aerows]

20. One Question

What in the hell has Clapper done by heading the NSA if he absolutely overlooked intelligence on the ISIL threat?

Exactly nothing except get paid and swap porn while everyone else pays taxes to fund him and his organization.

You want to know what a dire information hole and irresponsibility looks like? That asshole.

Clapper isn't fit to run a lemonade stand, and instead of pennies, he's funneling billions.

If he isn't fired post haste, I want to know why.

[merrily]

24. forget ISIL, what about just the Tsarnaev''s?

2 warnings from Russia, naming them. And after the Boston Marathon bombings, we got no sensible explanation. Russia did not respond to our request for more info, so we did nothing?

Is that really an excuse? What info? Did they even ever tell us what info they requested and why they could not proceed on their own without it? So, it's Russia's fault?

Our whole apparatus, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, just helpless unless Russia cooperated, even though they knew where the Tsarnaevs were and what their names were?

[Aerows]

26. Let's go back further than that.

Underwear Bomber. Warned by his FATHER. Hell, we had warning of bin Laden.

At some point, it is time for the public to stop suspending their disbelief on the "official" narrative because it is piled so high.

If Clapper and the NSA were worth a shit, along with the CIA, DIA and everyone else involved in this destruction soup, they would have prevented it. HAD IT BEEN THEIR DIRECTIVE.

[merrily]

28. Destruction soup. That's a good one. I'm stealing.

I might change it to stew, though.

But what about media? What about Congress? What about us? All just sat still for "Russia never got back to us. So.......this is on Russia, right?"

No one even said, "Isn't that called YOU dropped the ball? No one even asked, What info did you just have to have and how many follow up requests did you make for it?"

[Aerows]

29. Some of us know about it.

I just assume there are a lot of people that don't want to know what our government is doing.

It's pretty disheartening, so I understand that point of view, but at some point "We the People" have to start being "We the Taxpayers and We the Voters" and stop putting up with it.

[merrily]

31. I wish we could.

[GeorgeGist]

35. Obama's choice for National Director of Intelligence ...

might explain why our collective National Intelligence is on the downslide.