Comment Re:What does it matter? (Score 1) 191
Dude, do you know who Steven Aftergood is? You might want to look into his background. He's the Director of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy and the last person who is going to inappropriately defend government for trying to keep something secret. And yes, Sen. Wyden was trying to get the DNI to reveal currently and properly classified information in open session.*
The fact of the matter is that for at least the last 35 years, phone call records, as a "business record" provided to a third party, do NOT have an expectation of privacy and are NOT covered by the Fourth Amendment. Unless and until the Supreme Court reverses Smith, that is the standing, factual law of the land.
Furthermore, the entire purpose of the BR FISA metadata collection isn't to "spy on Americans" -- it is to "collect the haystack", so to speak, that may LAWFULLY be collected, in order to have access to it when searching for bad foreign actors who may be physically operating within the US on US wireless carriers. And every query against that data requires a reasonable, articulable, and specific foreign intelligence nexus, with its own separate FISA order.
It's not NSA's job to second guess the law or its authorities. Its entire purpose is FOREIGN signals intelligence, and the fact that some people simply can't accept that won't be changed by any amount of commentary in forums like this. Foreign targets now exist in the same sea of global digital communications as you and everyone else â" there is no way to have the technical capability to target the one without having the same capability to target them all.
Which is why, again, in a democratic society based on the rule of law, it is what the LAW says that is paramount.
* For what it's worth, my own personal view is that Clapper wasn't even thinking of the phone metadata program when asked that question. He was thinking more broadly in terms of the foreign intelligence collection missions of 17 IC agencies, which can, do, and always will sometimes encounter the communications content of Americans during the execution of their duties. And the fact is, no matter how many little pissant isolated examples of someone intentionally abusing something, there is no systemic, policy, or enabling environment to illegally spy on Americans. If you want to believe there is, then there won't be any useful discussion between us. Is there room for improvement and transparency on some fronts? Sure. But intelligence requires secrecy in order to be effective, even in free and open societies.