After insisting that the government’s unprecedented capability to monitor communications must be assessed by an independent panel with regards to maintaining the trust of Americans, President Barack Obama has announced the formation of a new review group.
A memo issued Monday by the White House said James Clapper, the
United States director of national intelligence, will lead a
newly formed review group tasked to determine if the US
“employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner
that optimally protects our national security and advances our
foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy
considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and
our need to maintain the public trust.”
The decision to formalize the board and appoint Mr. Clapper in
charge comes three days after Pres. Obama called for its creation
during a rare press conference and two months after National
Security Agency documents were leaked to the media disclosing the
NSA’s deployment of vast surveillance operations to collect data on the everyday communications
of American citizens.
That revelation, attributed to former intelligence contractor
Edward Snowden, initiated widespread discussion in America and abroad about
balancing national security with personal privacy.
But at the same time, Mr. Snowden’s disclosures also contradicted
a statement made earlier this year by Clapper, which in turn
prompted the director of national intelligence to issue a formal
apology to high-ranking lawmaker Sen. Dianne Feinstein for lying
to Congress.
During a March 2013 hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) asked DNI
Clapper, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on
millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper
responded in the negative, but was forced to correct himself when
Mr. Snowden’s revelations three months later proved otherwise.
The Guardian newspaper published a leaked NSA document on June 5
suggesting that millions of Americans fall subject to government
surveillance on a daily basis through a program that regularly
collects call records, or “telephony metadata,” for entire
populations. On June 21, DNI Clapper wrote Feinstein, the
chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to apologize for
his “clearly erroneous” statement on Capitol Hill.
As a result of that gaffe, Rep. Justin Amash (R-Michigan) called
for Clapper’s resignation. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said the
director broke the law, and Sen. Wyden said in a statement,
“This job cannot be done responsibly if senators aren’t
getting straight answers to direct questions.”
But while Clapper escaped more-or-less unscathed from what could
have ended in his termination or even prosecution for perjury,
his appointment to oversee a review board assigned to guide a
group investigating the very topic he lied about is quickly
rekindling criticism. During Friday’s presser, Mr. Obama said
that in addition to establishing the review group he’d be opening
up the NSA’s surveillance programs to more transparency and
suggested minor reforms. The administration later published
documents showing supposed legal justification for the collection
of Americans’ phone records, including one white paper that
claimed “the collection of bulk data is relevant to FBI
investigations of international terrorism.”
“Only in DC,” Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted
Monday, “James Clapper, instead of being prosecuted or fired
for lying to Congress, will now lead the review of the programs
he lied about.”
Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties
Union and a co-plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the
government’s spy programs, tweeted the “New oversight board
will be ‘independent’ in the same sense that the collected
metadata is ‘relevant.’”
According to the president’s directive – signed and ordered
during while he vacations at Martha’s Vineyard – DNI Clapper will
report back to the White House in 60 days to presenting the
findings of the review board and their recommendations.
“Recent years have brought unprecedented and rapid
advancements in communications technologies, particularly with
respect to global telecommunications,” wrote the president.
“These technological advances have brought with them both
great opportunities and significant risks for our Intelligence
Community: opportunity in the form of enhanced technical
capabilities that can more precisely and readily identify threats
to our security, and risks in the form of insider and cyber
threats.”
“I believe it is important to take stock of how these
technological advances alter the environment in which we conduct
our intelligence mission,” Obama said.
Mr. Clapper confirmed his new position through a statement issued
Monday as well.
Republished from: RT