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Democrats Privacy Republicans Security United States Your Rights Online

Spy Chief Pressed For Number Of Americans Ensnared In Data Espionage (reuters.com) 34

Dustin Volz, reporting for Reuters: U.S. lawmakers are pressing the nation's top intelligence official to estimate the number of Americans ensnared in email surveillance and other such spying on foreign targets, saying the information was needed to gauge possible reforms to the controversial programs. Eight Democrats and six Republicans made the request to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in a letter seen by Reuters on Friday, reflecting the continued bipartisan concerns over the scope of U.S. data espionage. "You have willingly shared information with us about the important and actionable intelligence obtained under these surveillance programs," wrote the lawmakers, all members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee. "Now we require your assistance in making a determination that the privacy protections in place are functioning as designed." They requested that Clapper provide the information about data collected under a statute, known as Section 702, by May 6.
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Spy Chief Pressed For Number Of Americans Ensnared In Data Espionage

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  • by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Friday April 22, 2016 @03:23PM (#51967235) Journal

    All of them

    • >> All of them

      Including illegal aliens, or whatever they're called today, and anyone else with an email address, cell phone, etc. who may have engaged in the suspicious, terrorist-supporting act of "accessing the Internet."
    • by s.petry ( 762400 )

      All of them, forever. Yes, even the unborn.

      FTFY

  • by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Friday April 22, 2016 @03:23PM (#51967237)

    Zero Americans have been caught. As once you look at a terrorist you become a terrorist to and instantly become unamerican. Since you are no longer an American those rights no longer apply to you. /knee jerk sarcasm might be in the above viewpoint

  • Yeah right (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22, 2016 @03:23PM (#51967241)

    What does it matter? This man is just going to lie before congress, and nobody will challenge any statement he makes.

  • Grandstanding (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22, 2016 @03:24PM (#51967247)

    This is grandstanding. Unless this information is released to the public and/or affects actual policy change, neither of which is likely, this reflects the desire of Congress to get attention in an election year.

  • Really? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22, 2016 @03:26PM (#51967251)

    They're asking a known liar who lied UNDER OATH to congress to supply them with information in order to make a decision?

    If I was in congress, I would demand this man be replaced with someone who can at the very least tell the truth UNDER OATH.

    • >> a known liar who lied UNDER OATH to congress

      You know we're likely to elect such a person as president this year, right?
    • Every single one of those fuckers has lied under oath. They're not gonna call him out on it.

  • I don't know about you, but I read this as: "We're thinking about punishing you, but we don't know what you've done wrong. Can you make us a list of everything you've done wrong so we can determine how much to punish you? Thanks!" And you expect an unbiased answer?
  • Clapper went on to tell the old joke about the old national intelligence director and the young national intelligence director. The young ones says, "Hey, look at that bunch of Americans down there. Let's run down and spy on that one."

    The old national intelligence director replied, "No son, let's walk down and spy on them all.

  • YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! Next question, please. Seriously, though, even the NSA admitted that their "threshold" on their software was 51%. Clapper could always say "yes, the privacy protections in place are functioning as designed. We never designed any or put any in place, so everything is functioning quite well."
  • ...after he lied the last time. http://thehill.com/policy/tech... [thehill.com] Since he didn't, why would he tell the truth now?

"The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." -- Lawrence Dalzell

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