Why is Snowden a traitor but Nadler not? Did Nadler not just go to the press with information that was part of a secret NSA briefing?
Rep. Nadler's disclosure that NSA analysts can listen to calls without
court orders came during a House Judiciary hearing on Thursday that included
FBI director Robert Mueller as a witness.
Mueller initially sought to downplay concerns about NSA surveillance by
claiming that, to listen to a phone call, the government would need to seek "a
special, a particularized order from the FISA court directed at that particular
phone of that particular individual."
Is information about that procedure "classified in any way?" Nadler asked.
"I don't think so," Mueller replied.
"Then I can say the following," Nadler said. "We heard precisely the
opposite at the briefing the other day. We heard precisely that you could get
the specific information from that telephone simply based on an analyst
deciding that...In other words, what you just said is incorrect. So there's a
conflict."Video: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4456141
From TFA: Mueller initially sought to downplay concerns about NSA surveillance by claiming that, to listen to a phone call, the government would need to seek "a special, a particularized order from the FISA court directed at that particular phone of that particular individual." Is information about that procedure "classified in any way?" Nadler asked. "I don't think so," Mueller replied. "Then I can say the following," Nadler said. "We heard precisely the opposite at the briefing the other day. We heard precisely that you could get the specific information from that telephone simply based on an analyst deciding that...In other words, what you just said is incorrect. So there's a conflict."
This is true all up until the "barring treason" part, which is incorrect.
Congresspeople have immunity for anything they say on the floor, additionally, they can't be arrested while attending a session except on charges of treason, felony, or "breach of peace". [1]
A lot of people in recent discussions on HN have been confusing the exception that allows them to be arrested on certain basis while they are attending session as an exception to the immunity for legislative acts.
[1] US Constitution, Article I, Sec. 6, Clause 1.