US intelligence chief Clapper defends spying policy | Hacker News Reader

US intelligence chief Clapper defends spying policy

bbc.co.uk

5 pointsGFuller5 comments

What I don't get is why this guy isn't in a courtroom defending himself on perjury charges. Many people, including some congressmen and women has made statements stating that what he did was illegal, so why has he not yet been indicted? What's the process?

If, according to Clapper, "knowing what foreign leaders were thinking was critical to US policymaking", then why do the US policymakers - president and congress (it's intelligence committee) - claim that they weren't informed about that?

As far as I understand, Mr. Clapper should be working for their needs, and noone else, shouldn't he?

The intelligence community extols the virtues of "need to know" and obsesses over OPSEC [1]. They protect both methods and sources, above all else. A sitting President will only ask for methods and sources if he absolutely needs to know (in order to make an imperative and difficult decision). Otherwise, the data flows in via daily briefings [2], with sources and methods likely removed. This allows for plausible deniability. // Side note: Just imagine how long it would take to explain every HUMINT, SIGINT, OSINT, etc operation to a lawmaker.

The intel committee knows better than to ask for methods and sources, as it does not want to accidentally leak a national security secret. Their data is often received via NIEs [3]. They might ask for a few methods to cover their butt, but you know for sure that the DCI is never going to give up REAL source - it could cost lives.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_security [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Daily_Brief [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Estimate

EDIT: words

I'm not saying that they need to detail how they get the calls and who/when they managed and who/when failed to intercept.

However, even if the individual interception targets aren't discussed, 100% of them (not 99%) should be according to policy explicitly decided by the lawmakers - not arbitrarily by NSA leadership, but by President and/or Congress.

Should NSA wiretap governments of NATO countries? Should NSA record communications of all americans? The answer may be yes or no, there are all kinds of reasons, but it's definitely not the right of NSA to decide on that answer; they are allowed to do that if and only if the democratically elected policymakers have, well, made policies that allow that. These policies need not be public, but they need to be there - it would be completely understandable if Obama had authorised the wiretapping of Merkel and everyone else but denies it for diplomatic reasons, but it's unforgiveable sabotage if the same thing happened against the direction that president and secretary of state desired.

It's quite likely that the intel coming from German politician phones is more important than the effect of it on German relations, as the scandal will likely wash away soon. However, it's not the job or privilege of mr. Clapper to decide on that compromise; his job is to implement whatever decision the lawmakers and commander in chief come up with, even if he disagrees with that decision. And if the lawmakers ask him to testify under oath, as they had with earlier surveillance questions then his absolute duty is to obey them, not the intelligence community.

The intel committee does know better than to ask for methods and sources, but if they do explicitly ask for some reason and keep up the request after being warned - then he'd damn well give up the real sources, even if it costs lives; if in such a situation he provides a fake source then he deserves (forgive me for some exaggeration) to be executed for treason - it's not 'his' agency or data, it all belongs to the elected representatives of 'we the people'. How would mr. Clapper personally react in his previous USAF position, if one of his subordinate officers had deliberately mislead him to cause a decision that the subordinate wanted? Wouldn't court martial be the obvious, immediate, mandatory response?

It's VERY lengthy, but the entire House Intelligence Committee hearing was public and the video is available on C-SPAN's website.

http://www.c-span.org/Events/Intel-Officials-Discuss-Propose...

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