http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/unraveling-the-scandals-fast/

BETWEEN THE LINES

UNRAVELING THE SCANDALS – FAST

Exclusive: Joseph Farah on how NSA can serve the people instead of the government

Published: 6 hours ago

by JOSEPH FARAH Email | Archive

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators News Service.. He is the author or co-author of 13 books, including his latest, "The Tea Party Manifesto," and his classic, "Taking America Back," now in its third edition and 14th printing. Farah is the former editor of the legendary Sacramento Union and other major-market dailies.

There are three major scandals facing the Obama administration, and I believe they can all be unraveled quickly and easily by Congress.

After all, this is 2013, and, as we all know, we live in an information society. In fact, we live in a surveillance society.

For once, is it possible our surveillance society can actually be used to rein in out-of-control government and get the people the answers they need to judge their officials in Washington?

Let’s first look at Benghazi-gate and the crucial questions that need to be answered:

·         What classified materials were captured by the attackers?

 

·         What code encryption software was compromised?

·         What up/down link satellite communication equipment was captured?

·         What regular video surveillance data at the consulate and annex were captured?

·         What do the autopsies show? Are they available?

Government has all the answers to these questions – and I don’t just mean the White House and the State Department. We have an outfit in this country known as the National Security Agency. It monitors all phone calls and emails, among other forms of communication including satellites.

Why is Congress bothering to ask questions of politicians who are in full cover-up mode? Why do they continue to play the game of he said/she said? Why not just subpoena the information investigators need from the NSA and CIA? Everything Congress needs to know can be found there.

Let’s move to IRS-gate:

It will take years before the Treasury Department and the White House come clean if we rely on traditional investigative procedures of the 20th century. We now live in the 21st century. The truth is out there. Neither the NSA nor CIA were likely directly involved in this mess, but the NSA monitors all communication – both domestically and internationally. If there are smoking guns to be found, the NSA can find them – and must be compelled to do so by Congress.

Again, for once our surveillance society can be turned against the government instead of against the people. Wouldn’t this be a triumph for freedom and the rule of law?

Now let’s move to the other scandal – Reporter-gate:

We’re to believe that the Justice Department was searching for the source of leaks of highly classified intelligence information and vital national security secrets.

First let me ask a rhetorical question: If you believed someone in your house were leaking family secrets, would you try to tap the phones of the unknown parties leaked information was suspected of going to? Or would you tap your own phones?

It would seem obvious and self-evident that it would be easier and faster to record all conversations taking place on your own phones.

Guess what?

Someone is already doing this – all the time. They do it at the NSA.

So, first you have to ask yourself why the Justice Department would be interested in the phone logs of Associated Press reporters rather than the phone logs and actual recordings of the leakers within government.

This is information that is easily retrievable by the NSA.

All of this raises some interesting questions:

Why have congressional investigators never demanded the NSA’s help in these investigations?

Doesn’t Congress have full oversight authority of the NSA?

Why should the Congress, which, under the Constitution, clearly has more power than the presidency, fool around waiting for answers it will never get from the IRS, White House, Justice Department and State Department when they have the ultimate resource to turn to – the NSA’s surveillance machine?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, for once, that machine were used to prosecute criminals within government rather than simply being the biggest repository of Big Brother files on the American people ever conceived?

Nobody likes to eavesdrop and spy more than the government.

Nobody keeps records on everything more than the government.

Nobody comes closer to God in being the all-knowing “seeing eye” of all that takes place in Washington and around the world than the U.S. government.

This is the perfect opportunity for the most powerful branch of government – the one that is supposed to represent the people – to get the answers it needs to get to the bottom of these scandals tout suite.