In a video published online by BuzzFeed, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) claims he was told in a closed-door briefing that the NSA could listen to a specific phone call, and get a call’s contents without a warrant, based solely on an analyst’s decision.
“I was rather startled,” said Nadler, who serves on the House Judiciary committee, according to CNET.
Mr. Nadler’s disclosure that NSA analysts can listen to calls without court orders came during a House Judiciary hearing on Thursday that included FBI director Robert Mueller as a witness.
Mueller initially sought to downplay concerns about NSA surveillance by claiming that, to listen to a phone call, the government would need to seek “a special, a particularized order from the FISA court directed at that particular phone of that particular individual.”
Is information about that procedure “classified in any way?” Nadler asked.
“I don’t think so,” Mueller replied.
“Then I can say the following,” Nadler said. “We heard precisely the opposite at the briefing the other day. We heard precisely that you could get the specific information from that telephone simply based on an analyst deciding that…In other words, what you just said is incorrect. So there’s a conflict.”
(Jacob Kornbluh -YWN – Exchange via CNET)
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