Keith Ellison, Minnesota Dem: Congress knows ‘almost nothing’ about Prism, NSA, and spy program
Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison discussed the NSA program, responding to comments made by the President during his appearance Sunday on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
Obama has pointed out that Congress was repeatedly briefed about the program in closed sessions, but if comments Ellison made yesterday on ABC can be believed, those briefings didn’t provide members with enough information for them to play an effective supervisory role.
“I’m allowed to see certain things, and they tell us it’s available if you make time at certain times and places to go see it, but the fact is, no, I’m not aware of the program that was revealed [this week],” Ellison said. “I had no notice. It’s a fiction that everybody in Congress knew.”
Then he was pushed.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You are a member of Congress. The president said on Friday that every member of Congress has access to information. Can you just first start out by explaining what a member of Congress who is not on the committee knows about this program or can know about this program?
ELLISON: I would say almost nothing. The reality is you can’t bring your staff in there, so we are moving around Capitol Hill at lightning speed, nearly every member of Congress is. If you can’t get any staff support, that means you’ve got to go into that room, you’ve got to sit there and pore through documents over the course of hours.
“I think we need to peel it back, and we need to make sure that we are considering the Constitution when we write these kinds of laws.”
[…] STEPHANOPOULOS: Obama has pointed out that Congress was repeatedly briefed about the program in closed sessions. ELLISON: “I’m allowed to see certain things, and they tell us it’s available if you make time at certain times and places to go see it, but the fact is, no, I’m not aware of the program that was revealed, “I had no notice. It’s a fiction that everybody in Congress knew.” [Then he was pushed.] STEPHANOPOULOS: You are a member of Congress. The president said on Friday that every member of Congress has access to information. Can you just first start out by explaining what a member of Congress who is not on the committee knows about this program or can know about this program? […]
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