Sooner than taking Edward Snowden to the woodshed on Face the Nation Sunday morning, Bob Schieffer wondered White Home Chief of Body of workers Denis McDonough about the historical past of objections to surveillance packages inside the past two administrations, while McDonough presented President Obama as a reformer of out-of-keep an eye on Bush-era intelligence gathering, quite than a proponent of his predecessor’s policies.

The subject came from an article via Barton Gellman in the Washington Submit on Saturday, in which he stated that major officials raised concerns about the program relationship again to 2004, with then-Acting Legal professional Normal James Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller both threatening to resign over the increasing scope of surveillance.

“The debate in 2004-2005 was a couple of program that didn’t have any congressional involvement,” McDonough stated. “It didn’t have any judicial oversight. And frankly, it didn’t have any of the internal administration-based tests and balances that now we have today.”

McDonough portrayed Obama as tightening the felony and legislative oversight on the NSA surveillance programs:

“When President Obama got here into place of job in 2009, after being elected in 2008, he used to be pretty skeptical concerning the importance of those packages. So he took an extraordinarily arduous take a look at them. And because of this, we modified many issues about how we oversee those applications. Congress now is way more robustly considering these programs—you’ll hear that from your subsequent guest—now not just the intelligence committees, but in addition the judicial committees. Every member of Congress has been given a classified white paper to study. So a part of what you see reflected in the Bart Gellman story is part of what the president was reacting to when he he made basic adjustments to this system.”

“Let me get you on the report here,” Schieffer mentioned. “Does the president feel he has violated the privateness of any American?”

“He does no longer,” McDonough validated.

“You understand, I believe again to what Ronald Reagan used to say, ‘belief however examine,’” Schieffer said. “On this scenario, it it seems the government could also be asking us to belief it but they can’t examine why we should belief it in some circumstances.”

“The president will not be saying, ‘trust me,’” McDonough responded. “The president is pronouncing, ‘I would like each member of Congress on whose authority we are running this program to have in mind it, to be briefed about it, and to be happy with it.’ That’s why we’ve carried out things like we did in 2009 and 2011 by using imparting a classified white papers, inviting every member of Congress—535 individuals of them—to look that piece of paper, to study it and to come back to us with questions. Congress has authorized these packages now in very robust debates. and those debates are to their credit score. however on the finish of the day, it was bipartisan majorities that enacted these.”

Watch the change here:

[h/t Breitbart]
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