Posted on 12/16/2015 11:02:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee is looking into whether Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) referenced classified information during Tuesday night's Republican debate on CNN.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), the chairman, has asked his staff to explore whether Cruz's comments about the National Security Agency's surveillance program constitute disclosing classified data, The Hill reported.
"I'm having my staff look at the transcripts of the debate right now," Burr told reporters, according to The Hill. "Any time you deal with numbers ... the question is, 'Is that classified or not?' Or is there an open source reference to it?"
His staff is now reportedly checking whether the information Cruz mentioned has been previously disclosed. It's unclear what consequences Cruz might face if he did disclose classified information, The Hill noted.
"I would be a lot more worried if he was in fact a member of the committee, but to my understanding this subject matter was not one where any members outside of the committee had been briefed on it," Burr said.
Cruz's comments in question came in a back-and-forth with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), who criticized Cruz for voting to curb the NSA's authority to collect telephone metadata earlier this year.
During the Tuesday night debate, Cruz noted that the NSA's old program allowed the agency to check only 20% to 30% of phone numbers for terror ties, but that the new program reportedly encompasses nearly 100% of phone numbers.
After Cruz's remark, Rubio said: "Let me be very careful when answering this, because I don’t think national television in front of 15 million people is the place to discuss classified information. So let me just be very clear. There is nothing that we are allowed to do under this bill that we could not do before."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Why don’t they go after the wife of the rapist with this kind of passion?
Well then why are you investigating him?
Burr doesn’t have the nads to question Hillary or any D’s. Right there after Cruz. Cruz should respond in kind.
This isn’t secret information...Burr is just a pathetic GOPE attack dog who’s chasing his own tail.
She shouldn’t have tweeted that either.
NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls
The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording “100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden.
A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine - one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance.
The voice interception program, called MYSTIC, began in 2009. Its RETRO tool, short for “retrospective retrieval,” and related projects reached full capacity against the first target nation in 2011. Planning documents two years later anticipated similar operations elsewhere.
Desperation from Cruz haters prolly a Mcconnell invention
Get back to me when the FBI slaps cuffs on Hillary and takes her away...
-I would be a lot more worried if he was in fact a member of the committee, but to my understanding this subject matter was not one where any members outside of the committee had been briefed on it,- Burr said.
Seems to me that it is the committee who leaked the info- and should be investigated- not ted
...and if Marco is on the committee, he is wrong for discussing it. Period.
Excellent data sourcing and rebuttal. Thank you.
Maybe they could compare it against Hillary’s use of a private email server to store Top Secret emails. And then to lie about it.
Ted should claim he’s a Muslim. Then they couldn’t look at any of his records.
The democrats don’t have a chance of defeating republicans, so what do the republicans do? Defeat themselves- Way to go Burr- Way to attack your own party and help the enemy!
Another good catch. Thanks.
Bingo. The rule used to be “neither confirm nor deny.” That was a long time ago but I doubt that has ever changed.
Dig down deep enough and you'll find "Mitch McTurtle" behind it.
didn’t the snowden files reveal NSA data collection and phone surveillance? It even revealed that the US had tapped merkel’s phone as well if I recall correctly?
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