Today the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the United States House of Representatives is holding a hearing designed to cheer the US government’s secret mass spying programs. The committee leadership’s one-sided agenda is highlighted by the title of this morning’s hearing—How Disclosed NSA Programs Protect Americans, and Why Disclosure Aids Our Adversaries—and the hearing’s witness list, composed entirely of high-level managers and lawyers in government entities administering the programs:
General Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency
James Cole, Deputy Attorney General
Sean Joyce, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Robert Litt, General Counsel, Office of the Director of National Intelligence