Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite
By David Sherfinsk. Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, said Wednesday that Tuesday testimony from intelligence officials on the government’s data-surveillance programs did little to close what he called a “credibility gap.”
He pointed to testimony that Director of National IntelligenceJames Clapper gave during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March when asked if the National Security Agency gathers “any type of data at all” on Americans.”
“No, sir,” Mr. Clapper said. “Not wittingly.”
“I guess the problem is ever since Clapper lied in March to us and said they weren’t collecting any data on Americans, there’s a credibility gap now, and it’s hard for us to really trust the intelligence community because the head of the intelligence community directly lied to the Senate and said they were collecting no data from Americans,” Mr. Paul said on “Fox and Friends.” “So I’m not sure when I’m being lied to and when they’re being honest.”
Mr. Clapper later said in an interview on NBC that the question didn’t have a simple yes or no answer, and that he answered “in what I thought was the most truthful or least untruthful manner by saying no.” Read more from this story HERE.
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California Rep. Duncan Hunter wants audit of U.S. secrecy in wake of NSA leak
By Shaun Waterman. A Republican congressman called Wednesday for an audit of all U.S. government secrecy standards, saying “classification inflation” is forcing federal agencies to issue more and more clearances, increasing the chances for leaks about vital programs.
“Overclassification,” or labeling things secret that don’t really need it, “stands to dangerously expand access to material that should ordinarily be limited,” wrote Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, a Marine combat veteran who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.
Mr. Hunter said he was calling for the audit because of the recent leak about the National Security Agency’s top secret data-gathering on telephone and Internet communications.
The leak calls for “a thorough assessment of the current classification system,” Mr. Hunter said in a letter asking the Government Accountability Office, Congress‘ investigative branch, to perform the audit.
Five million people in the United States have security clearances, the majority of them contractors. More than 1.5 million have top secret clearances, like the one possessed by self-proclaimed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Read more from this story HERE.
