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I don't believe it was perjury -- a statement made with the intention to deceive. NSA makes a distinction between data and metadata, as we know. If you assume

I don't believe it was perjury -- a statement made with the intention to deceive. NSA makes a distinction between data and metadata, as we know. If you assume that distinction, then the question is -- "does the NSA collect actual communications content on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans" -- something which, to our knowledge, is not the case. Can it? Potentially yes. But we haven't seen anything that suggests that it actually does. At best, his response contains an assumption which is arguably normal for an NSA director to make, and which may have be conveniently advantageous to hold. But I'm sure, even if you ask him today, he will say that metadata does not constitute intelligence collection. To prove perjury you need to demonstrate mens rea (guilty intent) and I think it's plausible that he did not intend to mislead the investigation. It was a hard question to answer, because he could not answer in a way that would reveal the existence of the program to collect metadata either.

rand83746 10y ago
I'm not a lawyer and can't speak to whether or not he's guilty of perjury. But, he's definitely a fucking liar, and you can't argue with that.
- jessedhillon 10y ago
  > "This is for you, Director Clapper, again on the surveillance front. And I hope we can do this in just a yes or no answer because I know Senator Feinstein wants to move on. Last summer, the NSA director was at a conference, and he was asked a question about the NSA surveillance of Americans. He replied, and I quote here, ‘The story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is completely false.’ > "The reason I’m asking the question is, having served on the committee now for a dozen years, I don’t really know what a dossier is in this context. So what I wanted to see is if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question, does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" To answer "no" to this question is to say that the NSA does not "have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers" on Americans. I see no reason to believe why that's not the case. You're welcome to explain to me why storing communications metadata at the NSA is worse than requiring telcos to store it, but that's hardly the slam dunk "he's definitely a fucking liar" case you want it to be. It's also unreasonable to expect the DNI to voluntarily admit to the existence of a centralized metadata repository in public, on TV. That's what the "he lied" folks expect to have happened here. At the end of the day, "Clappergate" is just "where should the metadata live," and that is, to my mind, a very minor argument.

rand83746 10y ago

I'm not a lawyer and can't speak to whether or not he's guilty of perjury. But, he's definitely a fucking liar, and you can't argue with that.

jessedhillon 10y ago
> "This is for you, Director Clapper, again on the surveillance front. And I hope we can do this in just a yes or no answer because I know Senator Feinstein wants to move on. Last summer, the NSA director was at a conference, and he was asked a question about the NSA surveillance of Americans. He replied, and I quote here, ‘The story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is completely false.’ > "The reason I’m asking the question is, having served on the committee now for a dozen years, I don’t really know what a dossier is in this context. So what I wanted to see is if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question, does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" To answer "no" to this question is to say that the NSA does not "have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers" on Americans. I see no reason to believe why that's not the case. You're welcome to explain to me why storing communications metadata at the NSA is worse than requiring telcos to store it, but that's hardly the slam dunk "he's definitely a fucking liar" case you want it to be. It's also unreasonable to expect the DNI to voluntarily admit to the existence of a centralized metadata repository in public, on TV. That's what the "he lied" folks expect to have happened here. At the end of the day, "Clappergate" is just "where should the metadata live," and that is, to my mind, a very minor argument.