U.S. lawmakers tasked with overseeing national security policy have criticized senior administration officials for providing the Congress with misleading information.
Members of Congress say White House officials have either denied the existence of a broad spying program or made misleading statements over surveillance operations.

A number of administration statements made it “impossible for the public or Congress to have a genuinely informed debate” about government surveillance, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, as reported by The Washington Post.

“These statements gave the public a false impression of how these authorities were actually being interpreted,” Wyden said. “The disclosures of the last few weeks have made it clear that a secret body of law authorizing secret surveillance overseen by a largely secret court has infringed on Americans’ civil liberties and privacy rights without offering the public the ability to judge for themselves whether these broad powers are appropriate or necessary.”

On March 12, James R. Clapper, director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the government was not collecting information about millions of Americans. But he later acknowledged that his remarks were “erroneous.”

At least two Republican lawmakers have called for the removal of Clapper, who denied the widespread spying operations on Americans while under questioning by Wyden.

The administration has been under pressure since last month when former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosed broad government surveillance of Americans’ Internet and phone use authorized under secret interpretations of law.

Snowden, who is now stranded in a transit area at a Moscow airport, faces charges of “espionage” and “theft of government property” in the United States. He has sent requests for asylum to several countries but is not yet able to leave Moscow as his passport has been revoked by the U.S. government.

Despite the efforts by the White House to portray Snowden as a traitor, the American public opinion appears to be supporting him. According to results of a Quinnipiac poll, released Wednesday, a majority of Americans, 55 percent, believe that Snowden is a whistleblower, not a traitor.

By Press TV

 

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