James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence under Obama, is one of the most peculiar figures of our time. Until Jeff Sessions, Clapper was infamous for having committed one of the most flagrant acts of perjury before Congress, when he flatly denied to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden that the NSA was collecting data on millions of Americans. The exchange is worth revisiting.
Wyden: “I hope we can do this in just a yes or no answer, because I know Sen. Feinstein wants to move on. Last summer, the NSA director (Keith Alexander) was at a conference and he was asked a question about the NSA surveillance of Americans. He replied, and I quote here, ‘The story that we have millions, or hundreds of millions, of dossiers on people is completely false.’ The reason I’m asking the question is, having served on the committee now for a dozens years, I don’t really know what a dossier is in this context. So, what I wanted to see if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
Clapper: “No, sir.”
Wyden: “It does not?”
Clapper: “Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.”
Clapper’s claim collapsed a few weeks later, when Edward Snowden blew the lid off the NSA’s vast domestic surveillance operation. Yet to Clapper’s…