With each new publication of documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the scope of the United States' spying system becomes ever clearer. And each piece of the puzzle reveals yet more lies and half-truths that those who are supposed to be providing oversight for the NSA have used to defend the practices.
New revelations published on Friday in the Washington Post make clear that the legal controls intended as checks and balances for this surveillance system are, at best, ineffective. And the power that NSA analysts have to monitor Internet and telephone data according to whim is enormous. At the same time, intelligence workers take significant efforts not to overburden supervisory authorities with too much information.
"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal e-mail," Snowden told the Guardian in an interview published in June. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said of Snowden's assertion, "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."
But the new documents show that Snowden wasn't lying, and it was Rogers who had it wrong. Whether Rogers did so knowingly or because the Congressman had been deceived by the intelligence service must still be clarified. » | Christian Stöcker | Friday, August 16, 2013
