Edward Snowden on surveillance: what the evidence says · JRE #1368

What the evidence says 01 / RECORD

At a March 12, 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Senator Ron Wyden asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper whether the NSA collects "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans," and Clapper answered "No, sir" and, pressed again, "Not wittingly." Documents leaked by Edward Snowden beginning in June 2013 revealed the NSA was in fact collecting bulk phone metadata on millions of Americans under a program authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Clapper subsequently apologized, telling NBC News his answer was the "least untruthful" one he could give given the classified nature of the program, and in a June 2013 letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein called his testimony "clearly erroneous." He maintained he had misunderstood the question as referring to email content collection rather than phone metadata, and was never charged with perjury; the relevant statute of limitations lapsed without prosecution. Fact-checkers and commentators have been divided on whether the episode constitutes a deliberate lie versus a mistaken or evasive answer, but the underlying facts, the testimony, its falsity, and Clapper's subsequent admission, are well documented and undisputed.