Posted on 06/12/2013 12:51:42 PM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - Several key elements in the bombshell story about the government's secret surveillance programs have been either underreported or left out of the narrative altogether.
The first is the degree to which all three branches of the government -- executive, legislative and judicial -- oversee these programs. The second is how did a little-known, low-level, 29-year-old, high school drop out with no academic or work credentials to speak of gain access to America's most critical national security secrets.
The first element, often completely missing from network nightly news stories, is that surveillance programs such as these are being closely monitored under laws established by Congress and overseen by a special court of federal judges.
The second story is a scandal of enormous proportions inside the Obama administration: its failure to establish and enforce a leak-proof system of access rules among intelligence agency employes, especially among private, contract workers employed by outside consultants.
In this case, the culprit is Edward Snowden, a low-level tech specialist who was hired a bare three months ago by the consulting firm Booze Allen Hamilton that provides an army of contract specialists for the top-secret National Security Agency.
The fact that someone with scant credentials -- who not that many years ago was a security guard at the University of Maryland -- could so easily gain access to the nation's top-secrets exposes a gaping hole in the administration's internal security system and has put the nation's national security in jeopardy.
As the story has rapidly unfolded, you would think that the surveillance program, gathering data from phone calls and foreign communications on the Internet was overseen by no one.
Last week, as the little-known surveillance programs triggered renewed debate, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. sharply criticized the news media for leaving out a critical component in the story: the "extent to which these programs are overseen by all three branches of government."
It was a justifiable complaint, because the oversight system is an elaborate one, set forth in law.
Every surveillance initiative must be approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), created by Congress in 1978. It is composed of 11 specially selected federal judges chosen by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
Justice Department attorneys must go before one of the judges on this panel to win their approval of each and every surveillance action. They must present their case in written and oral arguments that set forth why the FISA court should sign off on the surveillance and defend their request under intense questioning by the jurists. Last year, the court approved 1,789 eavesdropping applications. One request was withdrawn and some 40 others were modified to obtain the court's approval.
The judges exercise special vigilance to insure that the eves-dropping on foreign targets will not unwittingly violate the Constitution's Fourth Amendment rights "against unreasonable searches." There was only one case during this period when the court found this to be the case.
These judges take their work seriously and dismiss any notion they've become rubber stamps for the government. "It has opened my eyes to the level of hatred that exists in the world," U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, the court's chief judge, told the Washington Post in 2009.
At the same time, the House and Senate Intelligence Committee members are briefed on the government's classified national security activities, but are barred from publicly revealing what they are told.
"The Intelligence Committee knew and members [of Congress] could go into the Intelligence Committee room and read the documents, Jennifer Hoelzer, a former staff assistant to Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon who is a member of the panel, told the Post this week.
Is there a need to fine-tune the Patriot Act under which government surveillance operations are approved and conducted? Perhaps. That will be fully explored in the coming debate and likely hearings.
But the frightening, cold-blooded fact remains that global terrorism still threatens all Americans. We know that al-Qaeda cells and other related terrorist groups -- from a number of foiled plots and other sting operations -- are constantly testing our security, probing for opportunities to enter our country to kill as many Americans as possible.
Far-left activists like filmmaker Michael Moore and Daniel Ellsberg are hailing Edward Snowden as a "hero," and legions of terrorist plotters are cheering his dirty deed, seeing it as a major blow to homeland security.
"For me, it is literally -- not figuratively -- literally gut-wrenching to see this happen because of the huge, grave damage it does to our intelligence capabilities," Clapper said this week.
Snowden is a naïve, libertarian ideologue with delusions of grandeur about his new-won fame, given to hyperbolic and exaggerated claims about the power he had as a low-level tech consultant. In one of his self-absorbed diatribes, he bragged he could order wiretaps on any government official, from "a federal judge to even the president."
In a note to the Post, he said that "My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them."
Decisions about all surveillance operations should be "made by the public," he said in a video with the Guardian newspaper. But, in fact, they were made by the public and approved by them at the polls in the people they elected to Congress to write our laws.
Snowden will be arrested, brought back to the states and fully prosecuted for his crimes. But Obama and the administration have to answer some troubling questions, too. How did this security risk gain entrance to the nation's most classified national security secrets? How many other little-know contract employees -- among the thousands who work in other classified programs -- are leaking information to those who want to do us harm?
The president and his top intelligence advisers are sitting on a major breach of national security, but they have yet to explain how this happened and what they're doing to make sure it can't happen again.
-——The fact that someone with scant credentials ——
The leak is a distraction. The leaker is a card carrying Marxist.
Regarding credentials....... think Craig Livingston
Rats have tons of such apparatchiks
Righto .... but writer Donald Lambro is here to rescue our attention from the round-heeled magistrates (what, something like 11 warrant denials out of the last 30-odd-thousand requests?) and snooping superspooks (and now, it appears, zampolit Regime apparatchiki who initiated probes into journalists' lives to lean on them .... and the Tea Party .... and the King Street Patriots (whose founder and husband were immediately flagged for multiple audits and investigations the instant they crossed swords with local black Democrat corruptocrats) ... and anyone else Barky wants to "do" or, in the immortal words of Rahm Emmanuel, render "Dead! Dead! Dead!!!"
But we have to keep our perspective, right? All this leaking creates a problem for James Clapper, who would never do anything we'd disapprove of, right?
Ignore the man behind the curtain, Dorothy, but please attend Mr. Clapper as he lays it all out for us!
Thanks, Donald. You're a doubleplusgood duckspeaker, thanks for the prolefeed.
I don’t get it. What’s so funny about the word, “libertarian?”
Wheels turning within wheels turning within wheels.
So far, since the fall of 2008, and with the full force of the Obama-Media helping them 24/7, the democrats have been able to weather every scandal and screw up with hardly any negative impact on Obama's popularity and no punishment for any of the scoundrels and law-breakers.
If there ever was a Teflon presidency, this is it.
Ironic contextual usage.
BREAKING: Major Breach In Security On Obama’s Watch!! And America yawns and does not care, where is my check???
I think Snowden is CIA and he is about to drop the boom on Oboma.
Call it revenge of the bubbas
This is a ‘substance’ way beyond Teflon, methinks.
I don’t see the irony, but whatever.
>> Article: “Snowden is a naïve, libertarian ideologue”
I’m sure you’re familiar with the contempt towards libertarians here. I find the hero worship of this libertarian ironic.
Which of the 11 judges signed off on this?
from your lips to God’s ears!!
You need to learn the definition of the word “ironic”.
“”It requires Verizon, one of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies, on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.”
Verizon is what’s known in the industry as a “backbone” carrier. Even if you’re an AT&T customer chances are your traffic, be it voice or data (no difference between the two anymore) probably hits the Verizon network at some point.
The definition hasn’t changed. Maybe you need to accept the contempt here towards libertarians.
I’ll accept yours if you accept mine, DB.. Deal?
DB? GFY.
I trust Barry, Nancy, and Dingy Harry to be enemies of the good. The boy in with two first names wearing the robe, I trust even less than the Dems because he be politically cross dressing underneath that robe.
Nobody has betrayed this country in my life time as much as Chief Roberts betrayed his country by going over to the dark side on Obamacare.
High school drop outs are too smart to allowed to become regular agents, they make the regular agents feel stupid.
Amazing how a few years change so much,a Program called Able Danger exposed 4 of the 9/11 hijackers one year before they flew those planes into the Buildings. Why was the Information Not acted upon?
Now we collect all kinds of information and we still cant stop attacks when we have suspects identified,Fort Hood,Boston,Shoe Bomber.I think as with Able Danger,Political Correctness plays a BIG role.
For some History on these programs,revisit this Former Congressman Curt Weldon from Pennsylvania who was targeted for defeat by Bill Clinton and the entire Democrat apparatus.
Go to BING,enter Curt Weldon,Data Mining. Will open your eyes if this is your first introduction to this man and what he experienced during his 16 year tenure,it will no doubt infuriate you as well,Guaranteed.
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