Senators Request Independent Investigation Into NSA Programs

[ProSense]

Senators Request Independent Investigation Into NSA Programs

A group of 13 senators are calling for an independent investigation into what they call "troubling" National Security Agency surveillance programs.

In a Wednesday letter addressed to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), among others, request the board examine whether the NSA data and phone record collection programs are legal as authorized by Congress and whether they adequately protect the privacy of millions of Americans. The lawmakers further ask the investigation's results be produced in an unclassified report for the public.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is an independent agency within the executive branch tasked with advising the administration on issues of privacy.

Full letter can be found below:

- more -

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/senators-request-independent-investigation-into-nsa-programs

[grasswire]

1. if a hearing happens, then Snowden will...

.....have achieved his stated goal.

[Swede Atlanta]

2. Only if it actually reveals, IN OPEN SESSION, important information.....

These hearings are often demonstrated with great applause only to be "in secret" so that we, the American people that pay the Congress and those appearing before them, never see what is asked and answered.

I hope this is a crack in the un-Patriotic Act veneer and more will follow but I am not hopeful. The American people want their cheap Egg McMuffins, polyester clothes from China at Walmart and their American Idol. If you mess with those priorities you are in big trouble.

[ProSense]

3. Hearings will happen and Snowden will likely be prosecuted.

The hearing that Wyden queried Clapper on happened even before the current NSA request was issued.