Here's Why Snowden Plea Negotiations Are Going Nowhere

[MADem]

23. No, it isn't ridiculous. It is accurate.

http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2014/01/clapper-ssci/

.....some have concluded that DNI Clapper “lied to Congress,” as the New York Times editorial board put it last week. Some go further to suggest that the DNI should be prosecuted and imprisoned, as Sen. Rand Paul did yesterday.

It is of course wrong for officials to make false statements, as DNI Clapper did when he denied that NSA collects “any type of data at all” on ordinary Americans. But did the DNI actually “lie to Congress”?

In ordinary usage, lying usually connotes an intent to deceive. In this case, DNI Clapper could not have intended to deceive the Senate Intelligence Committee because the true answer to Senator Wyden’s question was already known to Senator Wyden and to all the other members of the Committee (as noted the other day by ODNI General Counsel Robert S. Litt). Committee members could not have been misled by the DNI’s response, and it makes no sense to say that he intended to mislead them.

What remains true is that others — especially attentive members of the public — were deceived by the DNI’s statement. If DNI Clapper “lied,” it was to them, not to the Senate Intelligence Committee, that he did so. But the Committee permitted that deception to occur, and to persist, and so it must take its share of responsibility for that. Yet unlike the DNI (who apologized, several months after the fact, saying he misunderstood the question), the Committee has not acknowledged any failure on its part.

When Senator Wyden posed his question in open session, he was evidently attempting to corner the DNI and to compel him to involuntarily reveal classified information about the NSA bulk collection program. At the time, it seemed to be a clever rhetorical maneuver. Even if the DNI refused to respond or requested to answer the question in closed session, that would have indicated that something pertinent was being concealed.

However, by answering falsely, the DNI turned the tables on Senator Wyden and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Whether by design or not (almost certainly not), the DNI’s response challenged the Committee to make its own choice either to disclose classified information about the NSA program — in order to rebut and correct the DNI’s answer — or else to acquiesce in the dissemination of false information to the public.

Funny that, how WYDEN--who HAD immunity and knew the truth--didn't correct the record, isn't it?

It was a cheap shot, and that's why there has been no frog marching. Further, Wyden completely disregarded the instructions of the committee chairwoman when he asked that question in open session.


http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/07/dishonor-in-high-places-sandbagging-the-intelligence-chief-again/

Wyden is a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and had long known about the court-approved metadata program that has since become public knowledge. He knew Clapper’s answer was incorrect. But Wyden, like Clapper, was also under an oath not to divulge the story. In posing this question, he knew Clapper would have to breach his oath of secrecy, lie, prevaricate, or decline to reply except in executive session—a tactic that would implicitly have divulged the secret. The committee chairman, Senator Diane Feinstein, may have known what Wyden had in mind. In opening the hearing she reminded senators it would be followed by a closed session and said, “I’ll ask that members refrain from asking questions here that have classified answers.” Not dissuaded, Wyden sandbagged he director.

This was a vicious tactic, regardless of what you think of the later Snowden disclosures. Wyden learned nothing, the public learned nothing, and an honest and unusually forthright public servant has had his credibility trashed.[1] Unfortunately the tactic has a pedigree, but for that, we’ve got to wind the clock back forty years.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/04/clapper-lie-congress-nsa-national-intelligence-counsel

“When we pointed out Mr Clapper’s mistake to him, he was surprised and distressed. I spoke with a staffer for Senator Wyden several days later and told him that although Mr Clapper recognized that his testimony was inaccurate, it could not be corrected publicly because the program involved was classified.”

Litt concluded: “This incident shows the difficulty of discussing classified information in an unclassified setting and the danger of inferring a person’s state of mind from extemporaneous answers given under pressure. Indeed, it would have been irrational for Mr. Clapper to lie at this hearing, since every member of the committee was already aware of the program.”

The only people Clapper was hiding the classified information from was the people watching CSpan--everyone else at the table ALREADY knew the answer. Wyden was grandstanding.

In July, Clapper apologized to the Senate Intelligence Committee for his “clearly erroneous” testimony.

“My response was clearly erroneous — for which I apologize,” Clapper wrote. “While my staff acknowledged the error to Senator [Ron] Wyden’s staff soon after the hearing, I can now openly correct it because the existence of the metadata collection program has been declassified.”
During a open hearing in March, Clapper said “no” when Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, asked if the NSA collected “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Obama said Clapper had “acknowledged that he could have handled it better” and spoken to Wyden personally about the matter.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/technology/197060-obama-clapper-should-have-been-more-careful-in-congressional#ixzz34Nvk8PCx

Who was making a stink, initially? Rand Paul. Yep. The Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. Ummm hmmm.

But yeah, nothing to see here, let's blame the guy who got sandbagged, who was asked a question that the questioner knew the answer to, and who asked that question even after the committee chairwoman WARNED the committee members against asking classified questions in open session.

See? Clapper was a completely unsympathetic guy, made very sympathetic with Wyman's boneheaded posturing. He did it on his own, too, without permission from his bosses on that committee--in fact, going against the express instructions of the chairwoman.

Dumb move.