Information is Power, NSA Plays Its Hand

They say that information is power. In this day, with the Internet connecting the world at the speed of light, it's power is beyond most people's comprehension. Typically government agencies refrain from entering the political process of funding and authorization, sticking to providing Congress with the facts and data documented the products they are authorized to provide for government.
The National Security Agency is in a unique position. They can't share with Congress sterling examples of their product since that information is usually highly classified. The NSA sifts through many terra bytes of information looking for national security threats. They also have enabled international criminal investigations. Under the Bush Administration, the NSA has taken the lead in spying on the Internet and other electronic communications, such as cellphones. There has been much controversy regarding their spying on American citizens and America's competing businesses. Everyone is happy they are looking for terrorists.
But now the NSA is providing "talking points" to Republican Congressional leadership to help in the authorization struggles for funding of projects. This is a clear conflict of interest and needs to be stopped. The kinds of inappropriate manipulations that are potential here is chilling.
washingtonpost.com

Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee are complaining that the National Security Agency has played politics in support of the secret program to intercept phone calls between alleged terrorists in the United States and abroad.


On July 27, shortly after most members of the committee were briefed on the controversial surveillance program, the NSA supplied the panel's chairman, Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), with "a set of administration approved, unclassified talking points for the members to use," as described in the document.


Among the talking points were "subjective statements that appear intended to advance a particular policy view and present certain facts in the best possible light," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said in a letter to the NSA director.


The cleared statements included "I can say the program must continue" and "There is strict oversight in place . . . now including the full congressional intelligence committees," as well as "Current law is not agile enough to handle the threat posed by sophisticated international terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda" and "The FISA should be amended so that it is technologically neutral." FISA refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the current law.


Rockefeller and six Democrats on the panel wrote Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the NSA's director, on Aug. 29 that they believed those statements "appear intended to advocate particular policies rather than provide guidance on classification." The letter added: "We believe that it is inappropriate for the NSA to insert itself into this policy debate."