{"id":77243,"date":"2013-10-08T22:08:59","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T21:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/nsa-spying-continues-while-oversight-stopped-by-shutdown\/77243\/"},"modified":"2013-10-08T22:27:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T21:27:44","slug":"nsa-spying-continues-while-oversight-stopped-by-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/nsa-spying-continues-while-oversight-stopped-by-shutdown\/","title":{"rendered":"NSA spying continues while oversight stopped by shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
A review panel established by the White House to assess the country’s intelligence programs is due to report its findings to the president this Friday. Days before deadline, though, that board has become a voluntary casualty of the government shutdown.<\/div>\n

President Barack Obama announced in August<\/a> that the unauthorized disclosure
\nof national security documents and the subsequent discussions it
\nsparked warranted the creation of an independent panel, the
\nReview Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Review Group will assess whether, in light of
\nadvancements in communications technologies, the United States
\nemploys its technical collection capabilities in a manner that
\noptimally protects our national security and advances our foreign
\npolicy while appropriately accounting for other policy
\nconsiderations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and
\nour need to maintain the public trust<\/i>,\u201d the president said
\ntwo months ago.<\/p>\n

Practically one week before a 60-day deadline to deliver a report
\nto the White House, however, the group has put itself on ice.
\nPolitico’s Josh Gerstein and Mike Allen reported over the weekend
\nthat one member of the five-personal panel \u2013 former Central
\nIntelligence Agency director Michael Morell \u2013 decided to pull the
\nplug on the board until the government shutdown that started last
\nTuesday morning comes to a close.<\/p>\n

\u201cI simply thought that it was inappropriate for our group to
\ncontinue working while the vast majority of the men and women of
\nthe intelligence community are being forced to remain off the
\njob,\u201d<\/i> Morell told Politico on Saturday. \u201cWhile the work
\nwe’re doing is important, it is no more important than – and
\nquite frankly a lot less important – than a lot of the work being
\nleft undone by the government shutdown, both in the intelligence
\ncommunity and outside the intelligence community<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"James<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could this be more important than kids starting cancer
\ntrials at NIH<\/i>?\u201dMorell asked the DC-based news outlet,
\nreferring to another government program that was put on hold when
\nthe federal shutdown started last week.<\/p>\n

On day two of the shutdown last Wednesday, Director of National
\nIntelligence James Clapper told lawmakers at a Foreign
\nIntelligence Surveillance Act oversight hearing that he
\ncouldn’t guarantee the safety<\/a> of the American
\npeople amid the shutdown, as furloughs caused roughly 70 percent
\nof the US intelligence community’s civilian workforce to be
\nshuttered until the government is up and running again.<\/p>\n

During that same hearing, Clapper said that leaked national
\nsecurity documents \u2013 a whole trove that has steadily been
\ncirculated among the media by former contractor Edward Snowden
\nstarting this past June \u2013 has jeopardized the safety<\/a> of the US as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople’s lives are at risk here because of data that Mr.
\nSnowden purloined<\/i>,\u201d Clapper said.<\/p>\n

But whereas the commander-in-chief created a review panel to see
\nif the programs publicized by Mr. Snowden should be scaled back,
\n100 percent of that board is on break while the intelligence
\ncommunity continues to operate, at least in part. Although
\nClapper said that 70 percent of the intelligence community’s
\ncivilian workers were furloughed as of last week, National
\nSecurity Agency Director Keith Alexander testified to Congress
\nthat only around 6,000 NSA employees had been sent home.<\/p>\n

According to the Washington Post’s estimate, that means only
\naround 15 percent of the NSA has actually been furloughed,
\nleaving maybe 30,000 or so employees on the job.<\/p>\n

The Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies
\nhas until this Friday to provide their interim findings to Pres.
\nObama through DNI Clapper, who has been tasked by the White House
\nto facilitate the panel’s operations. News of Clapper’s alleged
\nrole within the board raised concern last month after it was
\nreported that the majority of the five-person panel, originally
\ndescribed by Obama himself as \u201cindependent<\/a>\u201d of the White House, is composed of
\nformer administration officials and\/or influential Democrats.<\/p>\n

The group’s final report and recommendations \u2013should they finally
\nconvene in time in lieu of the shutdown \u2013 is due to the DNI and
\nWhite House by December 15.<\/p>\n

Copyright: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A review panel established by the White House to assess the country’s intelligence programs is due to report its findings to the president this Friday. Days before deadline, though, that board has become a voluntary casualty of the government shutdown. President Barack Obama announced in August that the unauthorized disclosure of national security documents and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-77243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}