Wait a Minute, I've Got Another One

Remember when James Clapper flat out lied to Congress when he told Senator Wyden that the NSA was not collecting data on millions of Americans? You know, just before the Edward Snowden leaks that proved otherwise? That didn’t go over well publicly. Remember how he said after being busted that he was just giving the “least untruthful” answer he could? Well that didn’t go over very well either, so now, he’s got another excuse:

Acknowledging the “heated controversy” over his remark, Clapper sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 21 saying that he had misunderstood the question he had been asked. “I have thought long and hard to re-create what went through my mind at the time,” Clapper said in the previously undisclosed letter. “My response was clearly erroneous — for which I apologize.”

  WaPo

Really? Misunderstood it? Then how do you explain what Senator Wyden has said about the question: that he told you the question he was going to ask you a day in advance so you’d be prepared, and that afterward he gave you an opportunity to change your answer, but you declined.

Out of all people, he has to understand that equal protection under the law means treating Clapper (and Alexander, who also lied to Congress) exactly the same way his administration treated pitcher Roger Clemens. Otherwise, the message from the government would be that lying to Congress about baseball is more of a felony than lying to Congress about Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights. Such a message would declare that when it comes to brazen law-breaking, as long as you are personally connected to the president, you get protection rather than the prosecution you deserve.

  Salon

Anybody who doesn’t already know that out there? No? I thought not.

Speaking of Salon, I bet they’re kicking their own butts for having let Glenn Greenwald go a last summer.