June 14, 2013 / by emptywheel

 

Al Gore: Get Your Hands Off of My (Our?) Internet

Working on posts and then will have my sis-in-law in to watch the Grand Rapids Griffins defeat her Syracuse Crush tonight in hockey. (Really!)

But I did like this Al Gore interview:

Gore said he was not persuaded by the argument that the NSA surveillance had operated within the boundaries of the law.

“This in my view violates the constitution. The fourth amendment and the first amendment – and the fourth amendment language is crystal clear,” he said. “It is not acceptable to have a secret interpretation of a law that goes far beyond any reasonable reading of either the law or the constitution and then classify as top secret what the actual law is.”

Gore added: “This is not right.”

Gore even recognized the problem of the Director of National Intelligence lying under oath.

Gore did say, however, that he had serious concerns about some aspects of the testimony offered by national intelligence director James Clapper during testimony to the Senate intelligence committee last March.

Clapper, in response to pointed questions from Democratic senator Ron Wyden, had said during that appearance that the NSA did not collect data on Americans.

“I was troubled by his direct response to Senator Wyden’s very pointed question,” Gore said. “I was troubled by that.”

Yeah! Me too!

 

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Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2013/06/14/al-gore-get-your-hands-off-of-my-our-internet/