Statement on Bloomberg News story that NSA knew about the “Heartbleed bug”

Note that there is again a flagrant lie in the GC's writing there - "Mr. Clapper [...] focused his mind on the collection of the content of Americans’ communications. In that context, his answer was and is accurate." We know now that this is only close to true in any sense with the disingenuous and misleading definition of "collect" the NSA uses - which has no place in ordinary English and deserves no place in legal opinions. Of course, lying in a letter to the editor to the NY Times isn't a crime, but if the GC has no compunctions about wilfully misleading the reader I'm highly skeptical of their other claims.

It's more than a little odd that he wouldn't have looked at the questions in advance - he knew this was a public forum, in which providing the most correct information while not leaking anything seems an important part of his job, and is likely to take some care and forethought.

"Keep in mind that this was a program that everyone on the intelligence committee had already been briefed on. You could make the argument that he misled the American public, but not Congress."

Most of Congress is not on either intelligence committee. Whether misleading them is correct is a deeper discussion, but if the answer is "no" then I think it's fair to say he mislead Congress as well as the American public.

In any case, I agree that Wyden's approach here has been a little odd, though I at least appreciate the direction he's been pushing.

The law should restrict things to "any current specific known need". Need should be singular and said need must be related to a specific issue or case already under investigation or surveillance. Any language more loose than that leaves open far too much room for interpretation.

They should literally maintain a list of targets they want to infiltrate and that list of targets needs to be open to being audited at some point in the future shortly after the related mission for a target is complete. They should not be allow to apply the vulnerability to any new target identified after the date upon which vulnerability was discovered. These countermeasures would go a long way to prevent abuse since they can't now look at it as a weapon in their arsenal to exploit as they see fit for any future mission.

Was his answer misleading? I definitely agree with you there. Was it a lie? That would imply that it was deliberate, which is tough to prove. He's gone on the record saying that he misunderstood the question and tried to correct it after the fact[1]. If it was deliberate, why lie directly to people that he knows know the truth?

I don't see a flagrant lie in the GC's writing. That quote goes back into the content/metadata issue. There hasn't been any leak so far showing content collection of Americans' communications. All of the debate in Congress regarding these programs has centered around bulk metadata collection. The issue everyone brings up when they accuse Clapper of perjury is the content/metadata issue, not the definition of collection. I haven't seen any government official denying that the NSA collects American cell phone metadata (besides this one instance with Clapper, which he admitted was erroneous).

[1] http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2013-0...

First, the metadata distinction is absurd in this context. The question asked was "Does the NSA collect any kind of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans." Data on whether I call my mother every Friday is clearly data about me.

Second, even granting the metadata distinction, it's still false using any reasonable definition of "collect". Garbage men collect my trash by putting it into trucks and dumping it in a big pile. Numerous programs have been revealed under which the NSA is reading content of the communications of Americans and storing it in a database. Using "collects", precisely defined, in a way different than the rest of the world uses it in legal opinions and internal memos is possibly iffy but I don't think clearly unacceptable; using it that way with no clarification or definition in a communication directed at people predominately unfamiliar with the distinction you're drawing is nothing but a lie. "Honey, I wasn't lying when I said I didn't cheat on you. I know I slept with my secretary, but the way I use the word 'cheat' it only applies if I cook her breakfast afterwards." The testimony at the congressional hearing may have been such a communication; the opinion letter in the NYT was clearly so.