Joe McCarthy Would Be Proud: Surveillance State Functionary Rep. Mike Rogers Implies Snowden Is a Russian Spy

Americans now know for a fact that the
functionaries and enablers of the domestic surveillance state will
tell bald-faced lies
even in sworn testimony to members of Congress who are supposed to
be overseeing their activities. On Sunday, one of the bigger
enablers, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) the chair of the House
Intelligence Committee implied on “Meet the Press” that National
Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden is a Russian spy.
Evidence for this deadly serious
assertion? None whatsoever.

From
Reuters:

“I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands – the
loving arms – of an FSB agent in Moscow. I don’t think that’s a
coincidence,” U.S. Representative Mike Rogers told the NBC program
“Meet the Press,” referring to the Russian intelligence agency that
is a successor of the Soviet-era KGB….

“You think the Russians helped Ed Snowden?” NBC’s David Gregory
asked.

“I believe there are questions to be answered there,” said
Rogers.

Hmmm. Innuendo is a game that anyone can play. Let’s see.

“I believe there’s a reason Rep. Rogers ended up in the hands –
the loving arms – of the NSA bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. I
don’t think that’s a coincidence,” say I at Reason.com,
referring to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and
his wife’s involvement with multi-billion contracts to sell
“security” services to government agencies.

Remember the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act
(CISPA)? Before Edward Snowden made the extent of NSA domestic
spying public, Rep. Rogers wrote up CISPA and the House of
Represenatatives had passed it. The Electronic
Frontier Foundantion explains that the CISPA bill…

…grants broad new powers, allowing companies to identify and
obtain “threat information” by looking at your private information.
It is written so broadly that it allows companies to hand over
large swaths of personal information to the government with no
judicial oversight—effectively creating a “cybersecurity” loophole
in all existing privacy laws.

Is it just a coincidence that Rep. Rogers strongly favors CISPA?
After all, his wife stands to benefit enormously from enabling
further domestic spying by means of CISPA. Back in April,

Techdirt looked into the Rogers’ ties to cybersecurity
firms that would benefit from the passage of CISPA:

Just last month, Rogers accidentally tweeted (and then deleted)
a story about how CISPA supporters, like himself, had received 15
times more money from pro-CISPA group that the opposition had
received from anti-CISPA groups….

At other times, he can’t even
keep his own story straight about whether or not CISPA is about
giving information to the NSA (hint: it is).

Techdirt goes on to report that his wife, Kristi
Clemens Rogers, now a
big time “security” lobbyist, …

…was the president and CEO of Aegis LLC a “security” defense
contractor company, whom she helped to secure a $10 billion (with a
b) contract with the State Department.

And it would be entirely speculative to worry that
NSA may be blackmailing Rep. Rogers using information about his
personal and financial life. Is there any evidence for this
speculation? No, but I believe there are questions to be answered
there.

Rep. Rogers’ scurrilous performance brings to mind the
exasperated retort of Army
Special Counsel Joseph N. Welch to Tail
Gunner Joe during the notorious 1954 Army-McCarthy Hearings:
“Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no
sense of decency?”