Greenwald: Fisa court oversight: a look inside a secret and empty process

[Catherina]

32. Today, Senate Intel Committee blocked former staffer from talking to press about oversight

I smelled something rotten this morning when this story popped up: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023038994
Senate Intel Committee Blocks Former Staffer From Talking To Press About Oversight Process]

I don't think this is a coincidence. There seems to be something they don't want on record even though that information is unclassified. The whistelblowers have all said the oversight is a joke, that the NSA is processing stuff for the FBI. Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe said they went to the Congressional Intelligence Committee about these problems and got no help. And yesterday Snowden specifically fingered them too, not about oversight but in general. He called them the Gang of Eight.

"seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress - and therefore the American people - and the realization that that Congress, specifically the Gang of Eight, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act."


This is truly terrible. I don't know who's advising the President but if I were his PR person, I'd suggest a totally different tactic.

From your article, which we already knew from the other whistleblowers:

So vast is this discretion that NSA analysts even have the authority to surveil communications between their targets and their lawyers, and that information can be not just stored but also disseminated. NSA procedures do not ban such interception, but rather set forth procedures to be followed in the event that the NSA analyst believes they should be "disseminated". ..."

So due process rights went out to window too. I still remember people's reaction when we learned that NSA was listening to the phone sex of US soldiers overseas who were calling their partners back home. The whistleblowers explain how you could bring up those calls the same way you choose the songs on your I-pod. There's a video of the ABC News segement at the link.

And that was then, before the analysts were given even more leeway in choosing their targets.

None of this is good at all.

They need to put an immediate stop to all activities violating the 4th Amendment.