"I’m on the Judiciary committee and the Judiciary committee has jurisdiction (over) N.S.A. and on (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and the Patriot Act," he said. "I availed myself of these briefings so nothing surprised me and the architecture of these programs I was very well aware of."
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"I think there should be enough transparency that the American people understand what is happening...But I can assure you that this isn’t about spying on the American people."
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"There are certain things that are appropriate for me to know that’s not appropriate for the bad guys to know," he said. "Anything that quote the American people know, the bad guys know so there's a line here, right? And there's a balance that has to be struck between the responsibility of the federal government to protect the American people and then people’s right to privacy. We have safeguards in place …The American people can’t know everything because everything they know then, the bad guys will know."
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"I have a high level of confidence, that it is used…to protect us and I know that it has been successful in preventing terrorism," he said.
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"We haven’t quite hit the exact balance we want to," he said. "I have been for more transparency and I actually co-sponsored legislation to require the FISA court to release their opinions on why they’ve decided the way they have."
Al Franken seems like a fairly credible source, to me. Nothing I've ever read of his, or watched him do, makes him seem like the kind of person who wouldn't call BS if this was everything its critics are claiming.
Wyden and Udall seemed to think it was/is a problem.
And this mindset from the Director of the NSA isn’t very encouraging, “what we’re being is very deliberate in this process so that we don’t end up causing a terrorist attack by giving out too much information.” (emphasis added).
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/us/nsa-chief-to-release-more-details-on-surveillance-programs.html?hp&_r=0
At bottom, the Bush Administration – and things I’ve read and also heard personally since then – cured me of taking solace in anything anyone from the intelligence community says, which I believe is where Franken is getting his information from.
things like this (http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/06/some-questions-and-about-edward-snowden) keep pushing me back from being too concerned about it.
Snowden/Greenwald’s technical claims just don’t add up. it seems obvious that NSA does not have “direct access” to Google et al in the sense that they can snoop around at will, they have “direct access” in the sense that they’ve built a means to get the info the court allows them to without a lot of hassle. and Snowden might have been technically able to get a wiretap on anybody or to snoop the email of anybody (once he knew the phone # or email address to target), but he couldn’t do it without a court order, etc..
no doubt the NSA people are slippery and not to be taken at their word, but i’m willing to accept that maybe some of that is because they have the odd job of having to publicly talk about something they’ve been ordered to never talk about.
(and, yes, never being allowed to talk about it is a problem)
OTOH there’s also Jerry Nadler:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-admits-listening-to-u.s-phone-calls-without-warrants/
and LGF, at least, offers evidence that Nadler wasn’t saying what reports are saying he said.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/42138_CNET_Says_NSA_Admits_Listening_to_US_Phone_Calls_-_But_Thats_Not_What_the_Video_Shows