The National Security Agency (NSA) was caught lying to Congress earlier this year. As most of us know lying become habitual so it should come as no surprise that the NSA also lied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the secret organization tasked with approving nefarious government surveillance activities:
Beyond the many instances of NSA malfeasance, the most damning aspect of the opinion is its lack of effect on future behavior. What does make it past the redaction details repeated wrongdoing that even the FISA Court, long perceived to be the NSA’s rubber stamp, found egregious.
A footnote on page 16 points out that the agency had “substantially misrepresented” the extent of its “major collection program” (including the harvesting of “internet transactions”) for the third time in less than three years. The same set of footnotes attacks the so-called “big business records” collection, accusing the agency of using a “flawed depiction” of how it used the data to basically fleece the FISA court since the program’s inception in 2006.
At this point the only proper corrective action is to abolish the NSA. Those calling for additional oversight are fools. Oversight is impossible if the agency being watched continuously lies to those watching it. Even if an audit committee is created it’s clear that agencies within the NSA would simply conceal incriminating information from the committee.