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America knows what it's doing.
Jan. 23rd, 2014 11:48 pmA congressional committee had to have Bruce Schneier brief them on the NSA's various unconstitutional activites, because the NSA, obviously, was not about to do so:
It would be nice if I could feel that decisions were going to be made based on Schneier's input rather than that of the Dementors, but let's be real: Mike Rogers, who's the head of the House Intelligence Committee, was on TV saying that Snowden had had help from Russia getting access to documents on a system for which he had administrative privileges.
What did he need Russia for, were Russian spies going to carry his pen drive for him? Was it an unusually heavy pen drive? Maybe he had trouble starting his car some days, and he needed a Russian spy to turn the key for him, or hold down the pedal.
What the hell does the House Intelligence Committee do when it meets, play Parcheesi? It can't be Monopoly, that's too complicated.
This morning, I spent an hour in a closed room with six members of Congress: Rep. Lofgren, Rep. Sensenbrenner, Rep. Scott, Rep. Goodlatte, Rep Thompson, and Rep. Amash. No staffers, no public: just them. Lofgren had asked me to brief her and a few Representatives on the NSA. She said that the NSA wasn't forthcoming about their activities, and they wanted me -- as someone with access to the Snowden documents -- to explain to them what the NSA was doing. Of course, I'm not going to give details on the meeting, except to say that it was candid and interesting. And that it's extremely freaky that Congress has such a difficult time getting information out of the NSA that they have to ask me. I really want oversight to work better in this country.
It would be nice if I could feel that decisions were going to be made based on Schneier's input rather than that of the Dementors, but let's be real: Mike Rogers, who's the head of the House Intelligence Committee, was on TV saying that Snowden had had help from Russia getting access to documents on a system for which he had administrative privileges.
What did he need Russia for, were Russian spies going to carry his pen drive for him? Was it an unusually heavy pen drive? Maybe he had trouble starting his car some days, and he needed a Russian spy to turn the key for him, or hold down the pedal.
What the hell does the House Intelligence Committee do when it meets, play Parcheesi? It can't be Monopoly, that's too complicated.
