When Director of National Intelligence James Clapper came to Capitol Hill to testify on Thursday, only one person bothered to question him about the government’s domestic spying activities – and that person was promptly arrested for it.
Just after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Armed Services Committee Chairman gaveled the hearing on “worldwide threats” to a close without a single Senator bringing up NSA surveillance activities, Shahid Buttar stood up from the audience and began lobbing questions of his own for the spy chief, and for Senators entrusted with oversight.
“In March 2013, you misled the Senate Intelligence Committee about the scope of NSA surveillance,” Buttar, the executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee called out to Clapper. “What do you have to say to communities of color that are so hyper policed that we’re subjected to extrajudicial assassination for selling loose cigarettes when you can get away with perjury before the Senate?” he asked, as a Capitol Police officer began placing him under arrest.
“Why is the NSA above the law for mass surveillance,” he continued asking, before turning his questions to Senators that were exiting the hearing room.
“Senators, why won’t you do your job? You’re charged with oversight of these officials,” Buttar said, with his body pressed up against the wall, hands cuffed.
Clapper has been a lightning rod on Capitol Hill for inquiries about the intelligence community’s espionage ever since he lied to Senators in 2013, telling them that the NSA wasn’t collecting any data whatsoever on American citizens.
Months later, a now-former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, revealed that indeed the NSA was collecting enormous amounts of data on American citizens in both a targeted and incidental manner. Snowden later told reporters that his whistleblowing was partly motivated by Clapper and other spy officials’ perjury before Congress.
But lawmakers, who were more focused on the fight against the Islamic State, the war in Ukraine, and looming cyber threats, showed no curiosity on Thursday about Clapper’s spying tools, even as reports based on Snowden documents continue to expose disturbing wrongdoing on the part of American spies.
Last week, The Intercept published documents revealing how US and British spies hacked into the world’s largest maker of SIM cards, Gemalto, and stole the company’s encryption keys, giving spies open-access to billions of cell phones around the world.
Feds are also making new claims about spying activities under Section 215, which permits the agency to collect certain kinds of business records, but has been stretched by secret court ruling to allow for bulk collection of phone metadata, Internet records, and financial transactions.
As The Hill reported, Joseph Demarest, the assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division claimed that Section 215 is an important tool in cyber defenses. If that were true, it would mean that the government is now using authorities intended to target terrorists to now go after hackers, as investigative reporter Marcy Wheeler points out.
But, ultimately, those eager to see Clapper squirm under such questioning left the hearing disappointed.
Later in the afternoon, Buttar tweeted, “Just got arrested on Capitol Hill for asking DNI James Clapper why he and the NSA are above the #law. Welcome to #America!”
With fewer than 100 days to go until a number of spying authorities, including Section 215, expire, talk on Capitol Hill about surveillance reform has gone quiet, particularly among Democrats. As The Sentinel reported this week, liberal lawmakers who were livetweeting parts of The Oscars fell silent when film Citizenfour, about Snowden’s decision to disclose documents and flee US authorities, was given the top honor for a documentary.
Watch the video below, provided by anti-war organization Code Pink.
