The more Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell talks, the worse it gets.
Consider: McConnell, whose nomination early last year was applauded by lawmakers from both parties, has twice provided false information to Congress — and in both cases, they were statements that served to distort the surveillance debate. In the heat of the surveillance bill debate, McConnell claimed that three German terrorism suspects had been arrested due to intercepts made possible by the administration’s Protect America Act; it turned out the intercepts were obtained under the old FISA bill. Only a couple weeks later, McConnell told Congress that rulings by the FISA Court had prevented the NSA from surveilling Iraqi insurgents who had kidnapped U.S. soldiers for 12 hours. That turned out to be, at best, a misleading explanation for the delay.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=179019