Comment by deathanatos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by deathanatos | Hacker News Reader

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The legislative branch asked:

> "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

To which, of course, Clapper answered, under oath,

> "No, sir."

And then, later, as the article recounts:

> Upstream's existence was revealed in leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 and the lawsuit was filed in the aftermath of those revelations.

Or as Snowden puts it:

> "seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress"

The legislative branch cannot check the executive branch if the executive branch simply lies when asked "are you violating the Constitution?". I have no idea why Feinstein herself (as then chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee) doesn't laud Snowden as a hero for revealing the truth: that the committee she chaired got lied to. I have no idea why California continues to re-elect her, beyond they see "Democrat" and vote. Choose a different democrat.

Honestly in a healthy system lying under oath to the congress should put you into prison no matter weather it's about national security or not.

Also not on discretion of the senators or anything, basically the state should be by its own law required to act immediately with high priority and trying to avoid that should also handled with penalties the same way.

Feinstein’s career is the perfect example of why two-party, first-past-the-post elections are fundamentally broken. Feinstein is universally disliked by Californians across party and age demographics, yet she keeps winning because the people who run against her are typically clinically insane (even more than her).

Yes. The courts can't control the executive branch, the legislature can't control the executive branch, the president can't control the executive branch.

It sounds like you're bordering on deep-state conspiracy theory wrongthink here.

> The legislative branch cannot check the executive branch if the executive branch simply lies when asked "are you violating the Constitution?".

I imagine the Senate could have ordered Senate's Sergeant-at-arms to take Clapper into custody. The Senate probably decided not to do that for reasons they thought were good ones, even if you or I might disagree with those reasons. I'm not exactly sure how things would have worked from that point; I expect it's really hard to arrest and try someone for a crime when the executive branch doesn't want to pursue things.

> I have no idea why California continues to re-elect her, beyond they see "Democrat" and vote. Choose a different democrat.

I've done so, every time she comes up for re-election, but so far for some reason the majority likes her...

Didn't Clapper go on to reply, "Not wittingly?"

You know, just like in every other criminal trial where the defendant is the one who gets to make the determination as to their own intent.

Yes, see

http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com/

The lie is now well known, and the legislature is still free to check the executive branch and the NSA.

Cite a source where the NSA is shown to have records on millions of US citizens please.

The (now open) secret is the NSA possess those records on hard drives and in a database, but that those records are (via a legal fiction) "uncollected" until a query is made that returns those records. And if the NSA wants to return those records from a query, a user needs to fill in the field alongside the request with a good justification, and (most of the time) that query is logged.

I don't think there is any dispute that such records actually exist.

Right? That was a such a toothless law. "Oh yeah, that thing you were doing in secret? Well now you better not get caught."

Do you not remember the leaked documents that Snowden showed us confirming that? Or the fact that congress literally passed a low to ban the NSA doing that practice? Well, if they were doing it secretly before, who's to say they aren't now. You can't audit something that's being intentionally obscured by a spy agency.

This comment won't age well.

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