White House appoints Intelligence Director who lied under oath about NSA to investigate his own spying program



Steve Watson

Infowars.com

August 13, 2013

A newly released opinion poll reveals that only 11% of Americans believe that the president will act upon a promise last week to scale back and provide more transparency on the surveillance programs operated by the NSA.

The survey by Rasmussen found that the vast majority of Americans simply do not believe a word Obama says when it comes to domestic spying. Out of 1000 respondents, only 11% said they believed that the president’s pledges would make it less likely that the NSA will monitor Americans’ communications.

Indeed, 30% of respondents noted that they believe it is now MORE likely that the spy agency will monitor their phone calls and emails.

Most respondents, 49%, said that they believed nothing will change, despite the President’s promises.



Obama said Friday that it was his job to make Americans feel “more comfortable”. He added that his administration would look to “revise and clarify” Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the NSA claims gives the agency the legal authority to collect massive amounts of data generated by ordinary Americans.

Obama also pledged to do more in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to scale back government surveillance requests under that controversial law, and to appoint independent experts to “maintain the trust of the people” when it comes to monitoring communications.

However, yesterday The White House suggested that the man heading those independent experts would be the current Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who has already admitted to lying to Congress about the NSA’s spying techniques.

A Presidential Memorandum from the Office of the Press Secretary, signed off by Obama, states “by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I am directing you to establish a Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies (Review Group).”

Again repeating the “need to maintain the public trust,” the memorandum goes on to state “Within 60 days of its establishment, the Review Group will brief their interim findings to me through the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).”

Essentially, in what would appear to any rational person to be some kind of sick joke, Clapper will be heading up the “independent” probe of his own domestic spying program.

A response statement released by Clapper on Monday announcing the formation of the group did not mention scaling back or curtailing abuses of the domestic spying program, referring only to the risk of “unauthorized disclosure.”

“The Review Group will assess whether, in light of advancements in communications technologies, the United States employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust,” Clapper said.

Speaking about the overhaul of the NSA on Friday Obama stated “It’s not enough for me as president to have confidence in these programs. The American people need to have confidence in them as well.”

In previous Rasmussen polls, 52% said they believe the exposure of the NSA’s domestic spying was a positive thing, with a further 46% saying that they favor more restrictions on the surveillance programs.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.

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