NSA Official Fired for Not Lying to Congress

[LowDown]

The National Review has been a strong supporter of the surveillance state, so if they seem to be getting fed up with the NSA it portends how serious the NSA's infractions are becoming.

A veteran intelligence official with decades of experience at various agencies identified to me what he sees as the real problem with the current NSA: “It’s increasingly become a culture of arrogance. They tell Congress what they want to tell them. Mike Rogers and Dianne Feinstein at the Intelligence Committees don’t know what they don’t know about the programs.” He himself was asked to skew the data an intelligence agency submitted to Congress, in an effort to get a bigger piece of the intelligence budget. He refused and was promptly replaced in his job, presumably by someone who would do as told.

If you go back and look at quotes from Feinstein and Rogers on the Intelligence Committee and from the President you find that again and again they are putting out information about the NSA that later is proven false. It does suggest that they are being lied to.

What is the solution for an agency like this that is out of control? The NSA can hide behind laws mandating secrecy, and so it becomes difficult to shine a light on their doings. I think that the only way is to abolish the agency, raze their building, salt the ground, and start over with something else and with new people.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

I like the burn it down and try again idea. Or not try again at all. Their sole job in life is to spy within our own borders... on us... That's really out of the government's scope.

 

[Gaugingcatenate]

The National Review has been a strong supporter of the surveillance state, so if they seem to be getting fed up with the NSA it portends how serious the NSA's infractions are becoming.



If you go back and look at quotes from Feinstein and Rogers on the Intelligence Committee and from the President you find that again and again they are putting out information about the NSA that later is proven false. It does suggest that they are being lied to.

What is the solution for an agency like this that is out of control? The NSA can hide behind laws mandating secrecy, and so it becomes difficult to shine a light on their doings. I think that the only way is to abolish the agency, raze their building, salt the ground, and start over with something else and with new people.

Yeah, I have no real starting point from which we can tame this beast. It starts to get mind boggling when you try to even come up with a solution. So, yours might just be the best solution. Somehow we have to be able to get some deeply embeded oversight, good people constantly looking at exactly what it is they are doing in all areas, minimum...but what are "good people" to one may not be to others, they can be bought/influenced, obviously can be tracked as regards to who and what they are communicating and thus could be subverted, blah blah blah.....so yeah, maybe just torching the place, starting anew, might just be the best solution.

 

[fmw]

Why pick on the NSA? The whole federal government is like that. It is just that the rest of it doesn't often show up in our private lives.

 

[joG]

The National Review has been a strong supporter of the surveillance state, so if they seem to be getting fed up with the NSA it portends how serious the NSA's infractions are becoming.



If you go back and look at quotes from Feinstein and Rogers on the Intelligence Committee and from the President you find that again and again they are putting out information about the NSA that later is proven false. It does suggest that they are being lied to.

What is the solution for an agency like this that is out of control? The NSA can hide behind laws mandating secrecy, and so it becomes difficult to shine a light on their doings. I think that the only way is to abolish the agency, raze their building, salt the ground, and start over with something else and with new people.

There seems no doubt. But I do not think you should despair. We must put stricter controls on the agencies and the presidency. Comparatively the States do a pretty good job. But we must try harder.