Obama ‘lied’ about NSA programs

President Barack Obama and some US senators have “lied” and have been “lied to” about the massive surveillance programs by the National Security Agency (NSA), says an American journalist.

“He (Obama) has lied, he has denied that NSA engages in domestic spying and somehow a number of the members of the US Senate,” Rob Kall, executive editor of OpEdNews.com, told Press on Sunday.

“It’s clear that Obama has been forced to respond to… the spying program and NSA program and the program that he has expanded using the Patriot Act and Homeland Security,” he added.

On Friday, Obama said he would ask Congress to narrow and improve oversight of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which permits the government to collect phone records, after Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, leaked secrete information about the spying programs.

Kall said Obama will not roll back the surveillance programs in the US. “Obama will improve surveillance measures and that means expand them. I just do not believe that he will really push any executive powers.”

During a congressional hearing in March, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that the NSA did not collect data on millions of Americans; a response he later said was “clearly erroneous.”

“Clapper should be fired, Obama should fire him,” Kall said.

Snowden revealed to news media that the NSA collects phone records and email communications of Americans and foreign nationals. He is wanted in the US for charges of espionage and theft of government property.

He arrived in Russia from Hong Kong on June 23 and remained in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport for more than one month before being granted temporary asylum on August 1.