NOVANEWS
A political commentator says National Intelligence Director James Clapper is a ‘liar’ and should be prosecuted for ‘perjury’ due to his denial of National Security Agency’s collection of U.S. citizens’ personal data during a Senate hearing.
“James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence of the United States, is a provable liar. He has lied to the United State Congress under oath. He has committed perjury which is a crime. He should be removed from office. He should be prosecuted for lying to the Congress,” Texas based former U.S. Senate Candidate Mark Dankof said to the U.S. Desk.
Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, asked Clapper at a March 12 congressional hearing whether the NSA “collects any type of data at all on hundreds of millions of Americans?”
Clapper told Wyden: “No sir, it does not.” When asked for clarification, he said “not wittingly.”
Dankof also added that the message of this whole issue is that people “cannot trust the government.”
“It’s a very sad situation that reinforces duplicity in the government”.
Both President Barack Obama and Clapper have defended the NSA’s spying program as transparent and necessary.
The embarrassing revelations landed the U.S. government in a brewing scandal and shocked even Washington’s closest allies in Europe, especially after German magazine Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that the NSA bugged European Union’s offices in Washington, New York and Brussels.
Edward Snowden, the leaker of controversial espionage grogram, has been stranded in a transit area of a Moscow airport for more than a week. He is now asking asylum from 21 countries after Russia and Ecuador reportedly denied his asylum request.
