Cue the phony outrage.
NSA spying under fire: 'You've got a problem'
By PETE YOST
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a heated confrontation over domestic spying, members of Congress said Wednesday they never intended to allow the National Security Agency to build a database of every phone call in America. And they threatened to curtail the government's surveillance authority.
Top Obama administration officials countered that the once-secret program was legal and necessary to keep America safe. And they left open the possibility that they could build similar databases of people's credit card transactions, hotel records and Internet searches.
The clash on Capitol Hill undercut President Barack Obama's assurances that Congress had fully understood the dramatic expansion of government power it authorized repeatedly over the past decade.
The House Judiciary Committee hearing also represented perhaps the most public, substantive congressional debate on surveillance powers since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Previous debates have been largely theoretical and legalistic, with officials in the Bush and Obama administrations keeping the details hidden behind the cloak of classified information.
This Dog and Pony show is getting old.
Call me when they actually do something about this.
1 comment:
Some effective action would be nice. It's not what they say but what they do.
If Congress wanted to, they could eliminate the funding for these programs and they'd go away.
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