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Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#51

Post by danielweber »

krapp wrote: post #22
eli wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think perhaps you've been consuming only media that mirrors your own viewpoint. Many people are upset that Snowden "violated his oath," that he took it upon himself to effectively dismantle programs he disagreed with (even if the program was indeed out of line), and that he fled from the consequences of his actions. If you believe public opinion polling, a majority of Americans don't like what he did and think he s…

Bear in mind another point - believing Snowden needs to stand trial doesn't necessarily presume a belief that he's guilty, or should be punished, either. Americans also tend to believe the justice system works as advertised.

As a matter of order, people should only stand trial if the government legitimately believes them guilty and the government believes it can prove this to a jury.

Trials aren't for finding out facts or uncovering the truth. They are the formal processes that a government must do after deciding that a citizen deserves punishment to actually effect their decision.

minor edits

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#52

Post by talmand »

bradleyjg wrote: post #31
gottasayit wrote: post #21

Of course Clapper isn't going to be punished. Holder was held in contempt of Congress for stonewalling on Fast and Furious, but since pursuit of his punishment would require action from an Obama political appointee, nothing will happen. No one went to jail for the Wall Street fiasco. No one was fired for being wrong about WMDs in Iraq. We still don't know anything about Benghazi while some poor sap who published a vi…

Each house of Congress has inherent contempt powers and can jail people, in the Capitol if necessary. They haven't exercised that power since 1934, these days they refer contemptors to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia. The older power still remains though and is on very firm Constitutional grounds (though for a cabinet official there are issues of executive privilege). More generally it's hard to take Con…

Any member of Congress that starts putting Administration personnel in jail will be committing political suicide.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#53

Post by gcb0 »

higherpurpose wrote: post #39
tokenadult wrote: post #19

There is some good reporting here by the Washington Post about the circumstances of Clapper's testimony to Congress. Readers here who know my comments know that I'm not fully happy with how Snowden chose to disclose information from inside NSA, and particularly not about his travel to China (Hong Kong) and Russia, but I think Snowden raises a fair point here. There is some genuine difference of opinion among American…

So are you saying the agencies should be "rogue" and completely independent from Congress?

Yes, his comment is just a winded way of saying ends justifies means.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#54

Post by talmand »

Involute wrote: post #45

As far as I can tell, Clapper was asked about a classified program during an open session of Congress. Confronted with a conflict between his oath to tell the truth and his obligation to preserve the secrecy of the program, he chose the latter and corrected his testimony later in private. Maybe I'm misconstruing what happened, but, if not, why is this controversial?

Because he lied during testimony in front of Congress without any consequences?

There were ways to answer the question without jeopardizing a classified program. It has been done before and will be done again.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#55

Post by talmand »

jerf wrote: post #11
noir_lord wrote: post #2

Because he has congress by the balls.

Impossible... Congress has no balls. To make this more than mere snark, seriously, committees of the size of Congress are nearly entirely structurally incapable of taking serious stands of this nature. That's not sarcasm, it's a real structural problem with committees, and despite how we often refer to it in humor, it's a fully real thing, not a joke. This is why the US still needs an executive branch, which is struc…

For all the size of both houses of US Congress, they are essentially run by a handful of people.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#56

Post by gameshot911 »

gottasayit wrote: post #21

Of course Clapper isn't going to be punished. Holder was held in contempt of Congress for stonewalling on Fast and Furious, but since pursuit of his punishment would require action from an Obama political appointee, nothing will happen. No one went to jail for the Wall Street fiasco. No one was fired for being wrong about WMDs in Iraq. We still don't know anything about Benghazi while some poor sap who published a vi…

>No one went to jail for the Wall Street fiasco.

Minor correction: One person did to go jail[1].

[1]http://www.propublica.org/article/the-rise-of-corporate-impu...

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#57

Post by jjoonathan »

rayiner wrote: post #28
tokenadult wrote: post #19

There is some good reporting here by the Washington Post about the circumstances of Clapper's testimony to Congress. Readers here who know my comments know that I'm not fully happy with how Snowden chose to disclose information from inside NSA, and particularly not about his travel to China (Hong Kong) and Russia, but I think Snowden raises a fair point here. There is some genuine difference of opinion among American…

> Every national government in the civilized world needs an intelligence-gathering agency that can operate with some degree of operational secrecy. > I think Congress is unsure about how to proceed on this issue because not all members of Congress are of one mind about what is best for the country in administration of NSA. > The other reason I don't believe this HN hivemind theory of politics is that I by no means as…

They aren't. They wouldn't even be controversial at the EFF.

The controversy stems from cost/benefit judgements on individual spy programs AND from the fact that Clapper perjured himself in front of congress and the american people. The latter is a far more clearcut issue than the former, and it's what we were talking about before the lawyer came in and changed the subject.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#59

Post by couchand »

Involute wrote: post #45

As far as I can tell, Clapper was asked about a classified program during an open session of Congress. Confronted with a conflict between his oath to tell the truth and his obligation to preserve the secrecy of the program, he chose the latter and corrected his testimony later in private. Maybe I'm misconstruing what happened, but, if not, why is this controversial?

The legitimate response in such a situation is to officially dodge the question. It doesn't even have to be public since they're given the questions in advance and have veto power. But Clapper went before Congress explicitly allowing them to ask him about this program and knowingly lied about it.

What's unfortunate is that it's not controversial. It seems Clapper has the backing of a pretty big group in Congress.

Re: Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress?

#60

Post by belorn »

rayiner wrote: post #28
tokenadult wrote: post #19

There is some good reporting here by the Washington Post about the circumstances of Clapper's testimony to Congress. Readers here who know my comments know that I'm not fully happy with how Snowden chose to disclose information from inside NSA, and particularly not about his travel to China (Hong Kong) and Russia, but I think Snowden raises a fair point here. There is some genuine difference of opinion among American…

> Every national government in the civilized world needs an intelligence-gathering agency that can operate with some degree of operational secrecy. > I think Congress is unsure about how to proceed on this issue because not all members of Congress are of one mind about what is best for the country in administration of NSA. > The other reason I don't believe this HN hivemind theory of politics is that I by no means as…

Let me add a few others:

1) Every nation should protect their citizens against intelligence gathering from outsiders. 2) Intelligence-gathering must be subject of the rule of law. 3) Military forces must be under democratic control.

Surely, neither of those are controversial either?

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