Will another terror attack make the NSA’s problems go away?

In a stunningly blunt interview with The Daily Beast, the Director of National Intelligence, General James Clapper, admitted that the NSA should have revealed that they were collecting the records of American’s phone records years ago. Wait till you hear what else he said.

I probably shouldn’t say this, but I will. Had we been transparent about this from the outset right after 9/11—which is the genesis of the 215 program—and said both to the American people and to their elected representatives, we need to cover this gap, we need to make sure this never happens to us again, so here is what we are going to set up, here is how it’s going to work, and why we have to do it, and here are the safeguards… We wouldn’t have had the problem we had…

What did us in here, what worked against us was this shocking revelation (by Snowden). If the program had been publicly introduced in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, most Americans would probably have supported it. I don’t think it would be of any greater concern to most Americans than fingerprints. Well people kind of accept that because they know about it. But had we been transparent about it and say here’s one more thing we have to do as citizens for the common good, just like we have to go to airports two hours early and take our shoes off, all the other things we do for the common good, this is one more thing. (The Daily Beast)

Did I hear that correctly? ‘If we would have just been more open about our subversion of the 4th Amendment after the panic of 9/11, we could have gotten away with this more easily.’ Now, I probably shouldn’t say this, to quote a phrase, but is Clapper implying that the next massive terror attack will make his life a little easier?

FLASHBACK: During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on March 12, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked the intelligence czar if the NSA gathers “any type of data at all on millions of Americans.”

“No, sir,” Clapper responded. “Not wittingly.” (Lying under oath to Congress is a felony.)