Speaking Lies To Power

Seeking to tamp fears, confusion, intelligence officials defend spy programs as safeguards - The Washington Post:

 Dogged by fear and confusion about sweeping spy programs, intelligence officials sought to convince House lawmakers in an unusual briefing Tuesday that the government’s years-long collection of phone records and Internet usage is necessary for protecting Americans — and does not trample on their privacy rights.

But the country’s main civil liberties organization wasn’t buying it, filing the most significant lawsuit against the sweeping phone record collection program so far. The American Civil Liberties Union and its New York chapter sued the federal government Tuesday in New York, asking a court to demand that the Obama administration end the program and purge the records it has collected....

Speaking of that...

Mansur Gidfar says:

Two months ago, in a Senate Integlligence Hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden asked the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" His response: "No, sir."

Apparently the man who openly lied to Congress is a hero, but the 29-year-old who upended his life to tell the truth is a traitor. Funny how that works.