US President Barack Obama announced on Monday that Director of National IntelligenceJames Clapper will create a review team designed to evaluate the NSA's national intelligence collection and surveillance capabilities.
Obama announced the creation of an “independent panel” of “outside experts” to examine privacy concerns raised by the NSA scandal. “We will form a high-level panel of outside experts to review our entire intelligence and communications technologies,” he said, adding that the panel “will look at how we can maintain (?) the public’s trust and how we can ensure that there is absolutely no abuse in how surveillance technologies are used.”
Of course, James Clapper, as the true Director of National Intelligence, is not one of the most trustworthy politicians. He recently apologized for a “wrong” statement he made to Congress (“wrong” in politics can also be the equivalent of “false”) after briefly claiming that the National Security Agency (NSA) does not collect data on Americans.
The “statement” came in response to Senator Ron Wyden’s question about whether the NSA collects “any kind of data from millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”
He answered “No,” but added diplomatically: “There are cases where the agency could perhaps inadvertently collect data, but not consciously.”
When his statement was later revealed to be false, he told NBC News that “I responded in what I thought was the most honest way.”
According to the above, you can have an opinion on the transparency that characterizes the committee that James Clapper will select.
