About half the Senate skipped classified NSA briefing

[DonViejo]

Father's Day was more important

BY PRACHI GUPTA

America may currently the middle the most intense national debate about data privacy since 9/11, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that by looking at the U.S. Senate. The Hill reports that more than half of the senators decided to skip out on a classified briefing on Thursday afternoon with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency (NSA), and other officials.

From the Hill:

The Senate held its last vote of the week a little after noon on Thursday, and many lawmakers were eager to take advantage of the short day and head back to their home states for Father’s Day weekend.

Only 47 of 100 senators attended the 2:30 briefing, leaving dozens of chairs in the secure meeting room empty as Clapper, Alexander and other senior officials told lawmakers about classified programs to monitor millions of telephone calls and broad swaths of Internet activity. The room on the lower level of the Capitol Visitor Center is large enough to fit the entire Senate membership, according to a Senate aide.

The Hill doesn’t know who attended the briefing and who didn’t, but it would be interesting to know what proud father Jeff Flake decided to do.

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http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/half_of_the_senate_skipped_this_weeks_classified_nsa_briefing/

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Things that make you go hmmmm!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. I would like to see a poll of the House and Senate re: Patriot Act/Spying etc.

[rdharma]

3. I would like to see a list of those 53 members who didn't attend the briefing! nt

[davidpdx]

4. Oh why is that a big deal

I mean Congress was suppose to know what was going on. We should trust that they told the truth.

[blkmusclmachine]

5. More than half had something better to do.

[Life Long Dem]

6. Damn

How will they know if NSA is guilty of anything?

[bahrbearian]

7. Who scheduled that Briefing ,couldn't it have been had an earlier time.

Everyone knows they don't work much on Fridays.

[Parable Arable]

8. Does there exist a list of the senators who skipped the meetings?

I want to know who's actually outraged for justified reasons, and who's outraged due to not being totally informed.

[savalez]

9. You can probably safely assume that

"I was never briefed" means "I missed the briefing".

[Cha]

10. Of course, they did and will bellyache that they

know nothing about it ..down the line.

At least, that's the way these things have gone in the past.

thanks DonViejo

[Scurrilous]

11. LOL

[JoePhilly]

12. Easier to misrepresent what's going on if you skip the briefings.

[polynomial]

13. Whole lot of going on

Looking at news today makes me wonder about the decisions and content of basic reporting in many topics not just the NSA stuff, but medical, food, corruption, immigration, Gitmo, etc. What are tiring on many blogs are the short one line comments that have actually no content.

With a laugh and a chuckle it makes me think most of the comments appear to be a basic Metadata tag listings. It appears more obvious many commentators on the blog here don’t realize they are basic metadata taggers easy to spot. Knowing entries with little to no content is expressed, however thinking to just putting up an animation is worth a thousand words. LOL

Or, cable and hate radio the Rush Limbaugh tyranny types finally realize there is no left or right just rich and poor. O.K. middle class is there too but scales pretty close to the poor side these days.

My point is many political persons are not characterized very well, that includes either party. For the short time this NSA appears in highlighted news glitzy with digital graphics huge flashy words print across the screen by Fox noise news, or MSNBC which appears to be nothing more than Fox light, “fails too big” in discovering or understanding to be able to report most of time.

Usually America hears things like “this begs the question” or “there are too many unanswered questions”. Or more curious, weird, issues that fade away losing interest by the reporting business or institute. Why the hell report something if it begs a question, they should have statements that “This answers the question”. Here is the possible solution.

Ladies and gentleman of America the media brought us to where we are right now. Think about it in twenty four hours plus seven days a week American media has the capability to resolve doubt, uncertainty, loads of corruption, and help a mismanaged political culture.

We the People give a license to business operate to serve the public, but get the shaft. That includes any business has the responsibility to serve with dignity, honestly, with value that will balance in society. Education and wages do that.

Moreover serving the public quantifies and qualifies every parameter of the Constitution, included in the service to the public as work in a living wage; a minimum wage does not cut it anymore. It is pretty simple if offering a living wage cannot be done the business should not exist.

Some social intellectuals call such situation prosperity. Not governed to create huddled masses in demonstrations to be oppressed, stifled, stressed, terrorized, swindled, or having the right to life is good, however putting obstructions in the right to life is totally counterproductive.

It also seems like Chairwoman Senator Dianne Feinstein is exasperated the Senate Intelligence Committee needs some support it appears half the Senate did not participate in the meeting before father’s day. Very disappointing.