They wiretapped all of Washington DC, "by accident", in an election year.<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-broke-privacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-audit-finds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-br...</a>
The NSA is one of the most powerful organizations on this planet, and the only people that could actually be kind of a threat to them, are members of congress. So in other words: the only people on this planet, who have the ability to do something against the total surveillance of the world... are exempt from surveillance.<p>Who the fuck, would believe that?
One thing that scares me about the NSA is that they are essentially a part of the executive branch. Imagine what a president from either party could do with that kind of power versus the other party or even just people they want to destroy. Now who can stop this?
I hope that 'the Merkel effect' will be significant here, in that it was not an issue until those with power were directly and obviously affected.<p>All too often it feels like 'the people' is a separate set to that of those in positions of executive power, with a bit of luck the smart wording of Bernie Sanders will ingratiate previously unbothered elements of the powers who can actually do something about stuff.<p>That said, I don't think 'spy on everyone, except the powerful' is a step up, if anything it's worse.
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/20/russ-tice-nsa-obama_n_3473538.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/20/russ-tice-nsa-obama...</a><p>"Russ Tice, a former intelligence analyst who in 2005 blew the whistle on what he alleged was massive unconstitutional domestic spying across multiple agencies, claimed Wednesday that the NSA had ordered wiretaps on phones connected to then-Senate candidate Barack Obama in 2004.<p>Speaking on "The Boiling Frogs Show," Tice claimed the intelligence community had ordered surveillance on a wide range of groups and individuals, including high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats."<p>definition of irony
I would like my British MP to ask in parliament if GCHQ are spying on members of the U.S. Congress. This is because we already know that the NSA get GCHQ to do little favours for them to get around domestic spying laws.<p>I was thinking I just need to cut and paste the senator's question and get my MP to ask it, however, does anyone here have any details to wording or other ideas so that a weasel word response isn't all I get?
It can't deny that. It is engaged in mass surveillance of US citizens. Members of Congress use Google Mail just like everyone else. To deny that they may have collected information on a Congressperson just sets them up for yet another scandal.<p>Presented with that question, NSA gave the only answer it could possibly have given, short of (once again) lying directly to Congress. That's not all that interesting of a result.
I really hate that this senator cares about only himself being wiretapped. Rather than caring about his constituents. This is the kind of selfish behavior that is appalling.
I'd hate to be one of the congress members that this took by surprise (assuming there ARE any that actually did not know) -- you'd be quickly made aware of your lack of power.
The way the question was asked by Sanders, the answer would be necessarily YES. Of course, the NSA can not answer YES, because [insert mention of 9/11 and national security argument here, wave a flag, if possible, while doing so], so they did the next best thing, made a lengthy statement that states absolutely nothing.
The real question is: has an human looked at Congressional metadata, or are they likely to do so? This question was not asked because, given the data protections in place, the answer is likely no.