Snowden: Why hasn’t DNI Clapper been punished for lying to Congress? • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by pessimizer » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:10 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #49

higherpurpose wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems HN didn't like your comment. Maybe a citation is needed: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/14

I think it's more that it is flippant and doesn't really advance the conversation in any meaningful way. You could post that comment on every story that touches on politics.

...that asks a question about why a powerful person wasn't prosecuted, or why the polled will of the people wasn't followed and the opinion of a few wealthy people was enshrined as law. Otherwise it wouldn't be relevant.

In this thread, it's the talking around in circles about "what the American people think about Snowden" and whether the speaker lives in a tech bubble or not that's irrelevant. We already know statistically that what people outside of the top 10% think has absolutely no relevance to policy.

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

#82

Post by mikeash » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:11 PM UTC

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…

I agree on the first two, but I have a hard time believing that anyone in national office possesses any personal integrity. Perhaps maybe one or two, but that's it.

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

#83

Post by josho » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:18 PM UTC

donutello wrote: post #48

josho wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, great. I'm very curious. I am honestly very interested to hear what you feel Snowden has done wrong? I had always assumed that for everyone except those with something to lose (e.g. politicians, bureaucrats) that Snowden 's actions were seen in high regard.

I feel he was right to disclose the illegal collection of phone records. However, he was wrong to disclose pretty much everything else that he did. He disclosed details of activities that weren't illegal and has hurt the NSAs ability to do its job on behalf of the United States.

That is the Government line. But, I believe it is a false argument (i.e. propaganda). Schneier (popular on here) spells is out clearly, https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/07/michael_hayde...

I disagree (mildly) with his first point that operationally the US is affected. Because it's been a long held assumption that the US had extensive spying programs in place. Snowden simply provided the evidence. So, if you had something to hide from the NSA you were already hiding it as best as you could. Maybe, now a few more attack vectors have been revealed and hiding/encryption practices will be updated.

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

#84

Post by mikeash » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:24 PM UTC

tormeh wrote: post #77

bediger4000 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would lose wars, basically How do we know this? This strikes me as an assertion without evidence. Are there examples? It also strikes me that the secrecy more often gets used to conceal career-ending mistakes and cost overruns, at least in the USA. Has anybody done an honest assessment of secrecy?

Nazi Germany and Japan partly lost WW2 because the Americans and the British broke their codes. Particularly the Japanese. Had the axis known their codes were broken they would have made new ones. Intelligence gathering would have been worthless without secrecy in this case. To be honest I don't really know too much about this. I've read Cryptonomicon, and that's basically it. But it would be hard to dispute that sig…

It's tough to dispute that this stuff is useful while in a major war, but I think the relevant question here is whether you need to have it all in place ahead of time, or whether you can spin it up on demand, as it were.

In any case, SIGINT certainly helped a great deal, but what really won the war for the allies was the roughly order of magnitude difference between the size of the economy of the United States and those of the countries it was fighting.

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

#85

Post by gknoy » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:27 PM UTC

Tloewald wrote: post #66

Why does it take Snowden to ask this question? Since when is blatant perjury before Congress not a punishable offense? I guess if you perjure yourself over drug use in baseball that's a lot more important.

In the article, they mention that several senators wrote a letter to the president asking for his removal on this basis, but I agree: it seems strange that there have been no charges.

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

#86

Post by tedks » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:28 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #9

hadoukenio wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See "Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda": http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-ope...

Also see people actually having an opposing point of view. Not everything has to be parallel construction, false flag operations and conspiracy.

But some things are. So some comments, probably the best, most convincing ones, the ones with the most time and effort spent on them, are sockpuppets from the American military.

There's no "parallel construction" or "false flags" here. There's just propaganda. All governments use propaganda. Governments have always used propaganda. If you think propaganda isn't a large part of your day-to-day life you're just unable to see it.

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

#87

Post by josho » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:30 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #18

josho wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, great. I'm very curious. I am honestly very interested to hear what you feel Snowden has done wrong? I had always assumed that for everyone except those with something to lose (e.g. politicians, bureaucrats) that Snowden 's actions were seen in high regard.

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…

I am not American, so perhaps it is that the rest of the world sees this differently than American's do.

Regarding Snowden fleeing, if you disagree with his choice then give this interview a read[1], it is with the whistleblower for the Pentagon papers. The opinion is that if Snowden didn't flee in today's climate then he likely would have ended up in isolation or Guantanamo.

As an outsider to the US it is interesting to observe that American's (on average) have a high distrust of their government, yet follow quite closely the US government's line. (Please note this is not intended to inflame, but it is an honest observation from an outsider that has observed many American's and is intended for you to reflect upon).

[1] http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/daniel_ellsberg_edward_snowd...

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

#88

Post by eli » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:34 PM UTC

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?

That's actually not 100% right. He did correct his testimony, but he said he testified in error essentially because, under the strain of coming up with an unclassified answer, he forgot about the collections authorized under the Patriot Act.

You can read the letter: http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2013-0...

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

#89

Post by mpyne » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:35 PM UTC

resu_nimda wrote: post #79

tormeh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would lose wars, basically. Now, this matters less than it used to in this age of the nuclear bomb, but knowing what other nations are doing and planning is still useful in trade and technology. Knowing more about the market than others means you get better deals and China isn't the only nation doing industrial espionage. Terrorism? It's a pretty pedestrian intelligence agency whose primary aim is to prevent terro…

China isn't the only nation doing industrial espionage. Yeah, this is a common argument, the intelligence arms race. It's just...we had the nuclear arms race, which we eventually realized was folly and really could only result in negative impact to humanity, so we started moving towards disarmament...only to start the cycle over again with digital information gathering, which is a lot easier to hide than a nuclear we…

> It's just...we had the nuclear arms race, which we eventually realized was folly and really could only result in negative impact to humanity, so we started moving towards disarmament

We have not started moving toward disarmament. Just ask Iran and North Korea.

If anything, what happened to Libya and Ukraine after they gave up existing nuclear weapons will hurt nuclear non-proliferation even further. And that's not even to get into the possibility of a Russia generally hostile to the West, which is the best possible thing that could have happened to U.S. nuclear weapons labs.

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

#90

Post by josho » Fri, May 02, 2014, 4:35 PM UTC

bmm6o wrote: post #64

josho wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, great. I'm very curious. I am honestly very interested to hear what you feel Snowden has done wrong? I had always assumed that for everyone except those with something to lose (e.g. politicians, bureaucrats) that Snowden 's actions were seen in high regard.

> Oh, great. I'm very curious. I am honestly very interested to hear what you feel Snowden has done wrong? Oh jeez, not this shit again. It's not even relevant to the topic of the OP this time. That is to say, here comes another giant pointless derail that will distract from the actual topic at hand.

I apologize, and you are spot on.

Clapper lied under oath, he has received no retribution for his lie, and the US population doesn't give a shit. Kinda makes one loose faith in the system, doesn't it?