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13. Intel Vets: Of Course Obama Knew About NSA Spying

WHETHER HE HAD ANY CONCEPT OF WHAT IT MEANT IS THE QUESTION, I SUPPOSE...OR WHETHER HE EVEN GAVE A DAMN...

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/10/29/intelligence_vets_of_course_obama_knew_about_nsa_spying

Everyone from the president to the lawmakers who are supposed to oversee the National Security Agency claim they had no idea it was spying on the communications of dozens of foreign leaders. But that claim is laughable, according to veteran members of the intelligence community, former White House advisers, and now one of the NSA's main overseers in Congress. A former White House official, who served in a prior administration, said it was essentially impossible that the president wouldn't know foreign leaders were being monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies, and principally the NSA, as part of regular operations aimed at keeping him informed about diplomatic relations and negotiations. Information on foreign leaders that is based on recorded calls or other signals intelligence is "unique," the former official said, and its nature is obvious to anyone reading or hearing an intelligence report or receiving a briefing.

"If you saw it, you'd know that it came out of somebody's mouth," the former official said. "I cannot believe that Obama's national security staff didn't brief the president on foreign leaders when he was going in to visit with them." Much of that information would have comes from signals intelligence. And the failure to inform the president that a piece of information came from spying on a leader could be a fireable offense, the former White House official said. "It's almost a dereliction not to tell him."

At a hearing Tuesday about whether to modify current surveillance law that governs the NSA's activities, a clearly frustrated Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, all but admitted that the NSA had revealed to members of his committee the details of an operation that targeted the personal communications of as many as 35 heads of state and government. And if his colleagues didn't know it, Rogers implied, they weren't paying attention. Rogers said the committee is privy to huge amount of information on U.S. spying, including a list of priority intelligence topics that is approved and modified by the president and his advisers and sets out the parameters of U.S. intelligence gathering. And, he said, committee members have access to "sources and methods" of spying, as well as "mounds of material" about the fruits of intelligence. In a testy exchange with Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who questioned why the committee had not been informed that the NSA had intercepted the phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Rogers fired back that the committee had been kept in the loop and that if Schiff hadn't read the reports he had no one to blame but himself.

"To make the case that somehow we are in the dark is mystifying to me," Rogers said. "Some members spend a lot more time on this committee than others based on their schedules, which are significant in this Congress. But it is disingenuous to imply that this committee did not have a full and complete understanding of activities of the intelligence community."

Asked directly by Schiff whether he was aware that the NSA had targeted the phone calls of foreign leaders, Rogers refused to confirm a specific operation but emphasized that "we have access to all sources and methods, and there is lots of product to be reviewed by the intelligence committee."

"We would be happy to take you down to the committee and spend a couple of hours going through mounds of product that would allow a member to be as informed as a member wishes to be on sources and methods," a clearly frustrated Rogers told Schiff.

Asked if Rogers had just confirmed knowledge of the NSA operations spying on foreign leaders, a spokesperson said, "The chairman's comment speaks for itself."

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