In other words, King was one of the few people in the country in a position to know that Director of National Security General James R. Clapper was lying through his teeth when he perjuriously told Sen. Ron Wyden at a Senate hearing that the government was not collecting data on millions of Americans at a time when he knew it was.
King said nothing and so far hasn't lifted a finger to prosecute Gen. Clapper, who should be in a cell next to Bradley Manning.
But the partisanly bombastic Rep. King thinks the generalized powerpoint slideshow which NSA contract worker Edward Snowden leaked is a horrible thing!
"If Edward Snowden did in fact leak the NSA data as he claims, the United States government must prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law and begin extradition proceedings at the earliest date. The United States must make it clear that no country should be granting this individual asylum. This is a matter of extraordinary consequence to American intelligence."King's rank hypocrisy can be explained this way: Snowden's slides merely showed which Internet companies were colluding with the NSA in huge data dumps of what their customers thought were private emails, photos and other data. It didn't explain the specifics of the collection or how to access it — it was metadata — the same kind of metadata that 1984-style surveillance apologists like King insist is harmless when collected on the telephone habits of hundreds of millions of law-abiding Americans.
This is the the sort of double talk, double standards and general con artistry in which King has been engaging his entire political career and is yet another reason to vote him out of office. Hope the "Don't tread on me" Tea Partiers in his district are paying attention.
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