James Clapper to Front Privacy Review Committee

What happens when you’re the Director of National Intelligence and lie to Congress during a review of your actions that clearly violated the privacy of the American people? You’re appointed to head a review committee that is tasked with determining whether or not you violated the privacy of the American people:

At the direction of the President, I am establishing the Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies to examine our global signals-intelligence collection and surveillance capability.

The Review Group will assess whether, in light of advancements in communications technologies, the United States employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust.

I know many people are outraged by this but if you look at it from a political standpoint it makes sense. Congress was briefed on and approved the National Security Agency’s (NSA) widespread spying operations. Clapper provided Congress with an out by lying to it, which gave it the opportunity to claim it was misinformed about the NSA’s operations. Since Clapper was a good sport and gave Congress a means of covering its ass, he is being rewarded by being placed in a position where he can further cover Congress’s, and the president’s, ass.

Politics is a dirty game that rewards the meritless.