10/23/13 – Jason Leopold – The Scott Horton Show

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All right.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show.
Next up is Jason Leopold.
Now he's writing for Press Freedom Foundation.
Hey, Jason.
Hey, Scott.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
You still write for Al Jazeera, right?
I do.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation, which is the crowdsourcing foundation in which Glenn Greenwald, John Cusack, Trevor Tim from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, they started it to help fund transparency organizations and transparency efforts, such as WikiLeaks and Center for Investigative Reporting, MuckRock News.
I was one of the recipients for a crowdfunding grant.
So every now and then I'll post something on their blog, particularly on matters that relate to transparency.
Okay.
Right on.
Well, and this is an important one.
It's Clapper, the DNI, James Clapper, the felon, the guilty felon, as everyone in America agrees, 100% unanimously he's guilty of felony perjury before Congress, which is a felony if somebody who's not the DNI does it.
It is a felony.
He's just in violation of it and getting away with it is all.
He's the guy that Obama appointed to head the committee that's going to double check and make sure that they're doing a good job.
It's, you know, they'll tell you a different story.
I mean, basically, you know, back in August, when all of the revelations about the NSA's widespread surveillance started coming to a head, the stories that were published in the Washington Post and the Guardian, Obama held a news conference to discuss some of this.
And he said during this news conference that he would take steps to try and win back trust, win back the public's trust.
Some people took him seriously and others did not, just based on his track record.
One of the things that he said that he would do is, you know, call for an, quote, independent experts, a panel of experts, basically to get together to sort of scrutinize these NSA surveillance programs.
And not long after that, maybe just a few days, we learned that the panel, the expert panel, would actually fall under the purview of the Office of Director of National Intelligence.
And at first, it became sort of, it was suggested that Clapper was going to have the oversight and that he was going to sort of head this independent panel, and the White House, as well as the Office of Director of National Intelligence, you know, they quickly tried to put out a statement saying, no, that's not the case, he's just going to, quote, facilitate whatever that means, you know, the work of this panel.
And the outrage regarding that was a result of the fact that, you know, which you pointed out, that he was lying to Congress, not just once, but several times, and that he was forced to, quote, apologize for his erroneous statement.
And so, you know, this panel sort of got together, and it was clear that it was not an independent panel, you know, you had Richard Clark on it, Cass Sunstein, Michael Morell, a former, you know, CIA official, so people who had very close ties, you know, to the administration.
And what happened, you know, several weeks later, back in September, they had their first meeting, and the meeting was attended by civil liberties organizations, privacy groups, technology groups, but the public was not invited.
Now, what the public probably was unaware of is that when Obama made this, what he called for, you know, for this panel to sort of be established, that essentially meant that it became an advisory committee.
And an advisory committee means that it would have to fall under, you know, federal law, the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
And the Federal Advisory Committee Act, it's a 1972 law that more or less says that the work that these types of committees do should be objective, and the public should be able to attend meetings, and check out their minutes, and, you know, see what they're up to, see what they're...that in fact that they are doing, you know, the work in an objective, transparent manner.
And so, when this committee started, this NSA review committee started to meet, you know, so the technology groups went, the privacy and civil liberties groups went, but the public was not afforded the opportunity to attend.
And that was sort of curious to me, particularly, as I mentioned, because it should have fallen under this, you know, this federal law.
So several weeks later, on September 22nd, the Associated Press put together a pretty scathing report, just more or less said that this committee is not independent.
It's simply an arm of, you know, the administration, it's an arm of the Office of Director of National Intelligence.
Even its formal name, which has Director of National Intelligence in it, shows that it's closely associated with, you know, the very same people who have not been forthcoming with Congress, lying to Congress.
And that story in the Associated Press indicated that Clapper had exempt the committee from following the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
And that was, you know, to me, that was like, whoa, that's a red flag right there.
And naturally, as you know, Scott, what I do is I immediately file the Freedom of Information Act request.
Right.
And I asked for the written determination that showed that this, in fact, this committee was exempt, that this committee did not have to follow those guidelines.
I was very surprised that, you know, that I received a response quickly.
In fact, it was just a couple of days ago that I received that response.
And there it was.
It was a one-page memo for the record, signed by Clapper, which said that he was exempting this committee from the Federal Advisory Committee Act due to national security concerns, meaning that none of their minutes, any records or documents could not be shared with the public, because it may pose a national, you know, may endanger national security.
And what was very interesting to me, however, was the date that he signed this.
It was September 19th.
They indicated that Associated Press published their story on September 22nd.
And you know, as well as I do, in the world of journalism, you're working on a story, you're probably working on it, you know, for more than three days, particularly if you're getting a bunch of comments, and you're doing interviews, and you're trying to chase down information.
So, I mean, I don't have any evidence, but it certainly seems to suggest that, you know, the Associated Press asked some questions about whether this committee was open, was opening its doors to the public, and if not, why not?
And Clapper, you know, issued this memo, basically exempting them.
And you know, it's important to also note that the law, it was back in 2010, in the Intelligence Bill, that Congress...actually, the Senate Intelligence Committee, this was backed by Dianne Feinstein and other members, that they slipped in an amendment into the Intelligence Bill that authorized, specifically, the Office of Director of National Intelligence, to exempt any advisory committees from following the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
And they're the only government agency that actually has that authorization.
So, I mean, the CIA, and believe it or not, the Federal Reserve, have a blanket waiver, so they don't have to follow it at all.
So it's interesting, and it's also important to note that that is likely the reason that this committee, this NSA Review Committee, was placed under the purview of the Office of Director of National Intelligence, so none of its work would be scrutinized.
And you know, once again, the statements that the President makes about transparency, they're just, you know, these empty statements that are meaningless.
Well, but what, I don't understand, what work are they even doing that he's got to keep from you if he says himself it's not classified, which is, in effect, saying he's perjuring himself when he says it must be kept secret, on the other hand, but...and this whole thing is just to goof around PR stunt anyway, right?
I mean, what's the big deal?
It's exactly what it is, and I think that it's, you know, that's certainly, you know, become clear.
In fact, there was no discussion, as far as we know, of any classified material in these open meetings, or rather, these meetings that were attended by the Civil Liberties Group.
So right, in other words, that would be the only argument that they have, right, is, well, listen, we had to really break down how Blarney works to the people at EFF, whatever, whoever they put on their committee to Richard Clark, hardly EFF, we had to tell them very, very top-secret classified things so that we would be able to assess what to do about it.
They're not even doing that.
They're not even pretending to do that.
They're only talking about the stuff that's basically already in the paper and not going beyond that.
Maybe not even going that far, right?
That's exactly correct.
So then the question just becomes, why?
And I think it's, you know, like I said, you know, Congress gave them the authority to do this, so they're doing it.
And you know, once again, the public just gets shut out of having any sort of, you know, meaningful discussion that, you know, President Obama promised with regard to this.
So again, you know, you have this secret, so-called independent panel, supposedly scrutinizing these surveillance programs.
Nobody knows what they're doing.
The report that they're supposed to release, or the interim report, was supposed to be released this month.
The final report's at the end of the year.
We don't even know when we'll get to see that.
So as you said, it all comes down to, or it certainly looks like, just a giant PR stunt.
Well now, the groups, the actual interest groups that were allowed to attend that one meeting anyway, they reported pretty thoroughly what happened there, right?
So what difference does it make to you, and what difference does it make to Clapper?
Well, when you say what difference does it make to me, I mean, let me tell you what I was interested in as a journalist.
I wanted to see their minutes.
I wanted to see records that they passed out, reports, to be able to report on it.
And I think the public would actually want to know exactly what they're talking about.
Clapper clearly just doesn't want anything discussed, even if it's not classified.
He doesn't want anything discussed.
The NSA, up until the revelations started to surface in June, enjoyed quite a bit of secrecy.
I mean, you would never get a phone call back from their office other than no comment on any specific program.
So here, the agency is under quite a bit of scrutiny, and they're continuing to go out of their way to, you know, essentially conceal whatever it is that they're doing from the public.
Right, and make it more and more obvious that they're exactly the kind of people who need to be reined in and not trusted with this kind of power, when the whole theory here is that a bunch of free people allow them to be our security force, rather than we're their subjects, and they get to tell us what to do all day, like in the old world.
Right.
I mean, it's funny that they actually had the Director of National Intelligence, Clapper's office, put out this Tumblr.
Do you recall that?
It was IC on the record, or ICON the record, and it was this effort to try to be transparent, where they placed some of the documents that they recently declassified, but if you have an advisory committee, I mean, think of it almost as your city council, and it's open to the public.
You know, the public perhaps will get a chance to comment, they'll get to see what's being discussed.
There's a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and they have access to classified material, and they discuss classified material, and those hearings that they have are open to the public as well.
They are open to the public, so it's strange that he issued this, and as I said, the timing is coincidental.
I mean, three days before this Associated Press report comes out, and the question just boils down to, like, why?
And why is he doing this?
But it's just another example of, you know, this rampant secrecy, and these meaningless promises about transparency that the president makes.
All right, everybody, check it out.
It's Jason Leopold at the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
The website is PressFreedomFoundation.org.
The article is, Clapper Memo Reveals Rationale Behind NSA Review Group Secrecy.
Good work, as always.
Thanks, Jason.
Thank you, Scott.
Have a good one.
You too.
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