FuzzyLumpkins
07-28-2013, 10:14 PM
(CBS News) There are "zero privacy violations" in the National Security Agency's collection of phone records, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said Sunday on "Face the Nation," just days after the chamber narrowly rejected a measure that would have stripped the agency of its assumed authority under the Patriot Act to collect records in bulk.
"There's more information in a phone book than there is in this particular big pile of phone numbers that we used to close the gap - we, the intelligence services - close the gap that we saw didn't allow us to catch someone from 9/11," Rogers said.
"Remember, this came about after 9/11 when we found out afterward that terrorists that we knew about overseas had called somebody who was a terrorist but living in the United States or staying in the United States," he continued. "He ended up being the person that got on an airplane and flew into the side of the Pentagon."
Rogers argued the program culls data that's merely "to-from - no names, no addresses" and is kept at bay by strict regulations that pre-require a counterterrorism nexus for snooping. He said the tight 217-205 vote on a bill that would have mandated the NSA to prove a specific individual was under investigation before collecting his or her records was driven by misunderstanding.
"The day before the vote, people were asking, 'How many of the numbers have recordings attached to them?' Well, the answer is zero. If you have to ask that the day before the vote - I knew I was in an education problem here. There are no recordings of phone calls; there are no dossiers. They do not record your e-mails. None of that was happening, none of it, zero," Rogers said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57595852/zero-privacy-violations-in-nsa-programs-rogers-says/
"There's more information in a phone book than there is in this particular big pile of phone numbers that we used to close the gap - we, the intelligence services - close the gap that we saw didn't allow us to catch someone from 9/11," Rogers said.
"Remember, this came about after 9/11 when we found out afterward that terrorists that we knew about overseas had called somebody who was a terrorist but living in the United States or staying in the United States," he continued. "He ended up being the person that got on an airplane and flew into the side of the Pentagon."
Rogers argued the program culls data that's merely "to-from - no names, no addresses" and is kept at bay by strict regulations that pre-require a counterterrorism nexus for snooping. He said the tight 217-205 vote on a bill that would have mandated the NSA to prove a specific individual was under investigation before collecting his or her records was driven by misunderstanding.
"The day before the vote, people were asking, 'How many of the numbers have recordings attached to them?' Well, the answer is zero. If you have to ask that the day before the vote - I knew I was in an education problem here. There are no recordings of phone calls; there are no dossiers. They do not record your e-mails. None of that was happening, none of it, zero," Rogers said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57595852/zero-privacy-violations-in-nsa-programs-rogers-says/