Misinformation on classified NSA programs includes statements by senior U.S. officials

[muriel_volestrangler]

The remark by Litt, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was aimed at news organizations. But details that have emerged from the exposure of hundreds of pages of previously classified NSA documents indicate that public assertions about these programs by senior U.S. officials have also often been misleading, erroneous or simply false.

The same day Litt spoke, the NSA quietly removed from its Web site a fact sheet about its collection activities because it contained inaccuracies discovered by lawmakers.
...
For now, the crumbling secrecy surrounding the programs has underscored the extent to which obscuring their dimensions had served government interests beyond the importance of the intelligence they produced.

Secret court rulings that allowed the NSA to gather phone records enabled the spy service to assemble a massive database on Americans’ phone records without public debate or the risk of political blowback.

The binding secrecy built into the PRISM program of tracking international e-mail allowed the NSA to compel powerful technology companies to comply with requests for information about their users while keeping them essentially powerless to protest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/misinformation-on-classified-nsa-programs-includes-statements-by-senior-us-officials/2013/06/30/7b5103a2-e028-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html

There's a lot more about how Clapper lied to Congress. But the point is, he's not the only one. The use of weasel words to hide what really goes on continues, right to the top.

[Democracyinkind]

1. Shouldn't US officials talking to the press about classified NSA programs get the Snowden treatment?

[leftstreet]

2. So when they do it, it's 'misinformation,' not TrEAsONz!!!111

huh

[idwiyo]

3. K&R