Intelligence Director Claims NSA Surveillance Reports Inaccurate 262
Nerval's Lobster writes "James R. Clapper, the nation's Director of National Intelligence, claimed that recent reports about the NSA monitoring Americans' Internet and phone communications are inaccurate. 'The Guardian and The Washington Post articles refer to collection of communications pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,' he wrote in a June 6 statement. 'They contain numerous inaccuracies.' While the statement didn't detail the supposed inaccuracies, it explained why the monitoring described in those articles would, at least in theory, violate the law. 'Section 702 is a provision of FISA that is designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information concerning non-U.S. persons located outside the United States,' it read. 'It cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S. person, or anyone located within the United States.' Those newspaper articles describe an NSA project codenamed Prism, which allegedly taps into the internal databases of nine major technology companies: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, and Apple. Both publications drew their information from an internal PowerPoint presentation used to train intelligence operatives. Speaking to Slashdot, Google, Microsoft and Facebook all again denied knowledge of Prism; the Google spokesperson suggested he didn't 'have any insight' into why Google would have appeared in the NSA's alleged PowerPoint presentation. But many, many questions remain."
Re:With Friends Like These, Who Needs Watchmen? (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the Powerpoint, you will notice that the PRISM program was classified as TOPSECRET//SI//ORCON//NOFORN . The NOFORN part means that other agencies, from the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand [wikipedia.org], do not have access to that information. GCHQ may have had access to the data acquired, but based on the NSA's own documents, the GCHQ was not privy to the source or method of collecting that data.
Re:"No Insight" - What they really mean (Score:3, Informative)
They are not protesting that they don't spy on U.S. citizens. They are protesting that they don't "target" U.S. citizens. Even if true, it does not mean that they are not spying on U.S. citizens. It means that they consider any spying on U.S. citizens as incidental, rather than targeted. "We're going to take the data on everyone, but it's ok, you're not the target" is not reassuring.
Re:He's a fucking STASI liar (Score:2, Informative)
STASI had beating chambers and used coercion as well though.
Re:The law is irrelevant and does not apply (Score:4, Informative)
Tell me directly, of what alternatives do you speak? The Libertarian party is largely blind to the problem of big business having government in its pockets; for example Ron Paul is a huge supporter of unfettered big business, not realizing they are a driving force behind the wars of choice for profit and power that he blames on Congress. He focuses on the puppet and not the puppet masters.
Re:what gets me... (Score:0, Informative)
God forbid we stop *actively* creating our own enemies via war-mongering, murder-drone striking towns of third-world civvies to get one alleged 'bad guy', oppressive foreign policy, sleazy "free-trade" agreements, war on the lower classes, etc. etc. etc. ad-fucking-nauseum.
The US was founded on some pretty admirable ideals. It's disgusting how badly we've failed to live up to them, all the while causing crippling cognitive dissonance by zealously adhering to the idea that we're the most freedom-loving nation there is.
Free to be enslaved, perhaps... and too fucking dumb and pacified to notice.
Add me to the list, I guess: those who still have a conscience, and foolish enough to think that ideals are worth anything.
Edit: Capcha = radical. o_o