Christie, Clapper and other Officials who should be in Jail instead of Snowden

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/christie-officials-instead.html

Christie, Clapper and other Officials who should be in Jail instead of Snowden
By Juan Cole | Feb. 1, 2014

~snip~

1. James Clapper. Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, was involved in massive and willful violations of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. He perjured himself before Congress, denying that the NSA was collecting masses of personal material from Americans. President Obama excused Clapper’s behavior on both accounts, saying he should be more careful. A-Rod should have been more careful. Clapper should not have told Congress a bald-faced lie, and shouldn’t have snooped into our metadata to begin with. Showing his fascist colors, he now wants to make journalists “accomplices” for publishing Snowden’s revelations. Clapper himself should be in the slammer, not Snowden.

2. Gen. Keith Alexander, outgoing head of the NSA, should also be in jail. Like Clapper, he violated his oath to uphold the constitution by collecting petabytes of personal data from Americans and storing it for 5 years. He also lied to Congress, about how many terrorist plots had been foiled by these methods (the real number is slim to none). Alexander should be in jail, not Snowden.

3. NJ governor Chris Christie defended the NSA spying against Rand Paul’s observation that it is unconstitutional. Christie shamelessly deployed 9/11, saying that Paul should as the families victimized by it what they think. Actually, the question is why US intelligence did not foil 9/11 given that they were following Khalid al-Mihdar and had him under surveillance. Now it turns out that Christie may well have been involved in closing a major bridge for petty political payback, which was a security danger and a danger to patients needing ambulances, etc. If the latter is true, Christie should be in jail, not Snowden.

4. Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who rules the Sunday morning programs and has said profoundly bigoted things against Muslim-Americans, has also loudly defended NSA spying and attacked Snowden. King is a material supporter of terrorism himself, and should probably be in jail, not Snowden.