Barry Eisler Responds to Ron Wyden

Wyden says he thinks the NSA might rein in some of its illegal, unconstitutional behavior. But what do we have to rely on in this regard? Ultimately, only the word of the NSA's representatives. And yet DNI Clapper has already proven himself willing to lie to Congress about what the NSA is up to. And Senator Wyden has proven himself willing to overlook those lies -- that is, to accept them without "a penalty or punishment for disobedience." Under these circumstances, if you were a simple Martian rather than a sophisticated earthling, how sure would you be that what the NSA tells you going forward is the truth?

If we want to have any meaningful level of confidence in the truthfulness of government officials testifying to Congress, it is essential -- it is a requirement -- that officials who are caught lying be punished for it in accordance with the law. Remove punishment -- remove the disincentive for lying -- and you guarantee lying. It's not much more complicated than that. To believe whatever the NSA says about its activities if Clapper goes unpunished is to believe in a fairy tale. If Congress is serious about its oversight function, if it wants the testimony it reveals to be truthful, it will punish Clapper in accordance with the law. If Congress does not punish Clapper, Congress is agreeing to continue to be lied to, and the NSA will continue to be democratically unaccountable.

A child would recognize all this, and certainly Wyden understands it as well. What prevents him from acting on it, I suspect, is the same sense of solidarity with other members of the ruling class that causes the New York Times to refer to Clapper's lying and perjury merely as "murky" and "misleading," that causes Walter Mondale to characterize it as "fibbing," that causes most of the establishment media to bay for the blood of whistleblowers while yawning at the notion that civilian oversight is meaningless if officials lie in their testimony to Congress. It's a kind of professional courtesy the powerful extend to the powerful, and it's extremely caustic to democracy and the rule of law.

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Wyden can't whistle past this graveyard. There really is something lurking in there, and Wyden has to confront it. If he doesn't, it won't get better. It'll get worse.

  The Heart of the Matter

I think we know which direction Wyden will take.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.