There is a caveat here, of course, and one that Clapper’s apologists insist is crucial: While the primary role of outfits such as the CIA and the NSA is to investigate foreign threats, they are permitted to conduct surveillance within the United States if a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court approves the operation. Because the NSA got such approval, the argument goes, there was no untoward behavior. But this is not a particularly convincing defense. First, FISA approvals are intended to accommodate agencies’ need to track suspected foreign spies who are operating in the United States; they are not supposed to enable the NSA’s doing whatever it wishes within America’s borders. Second, the notion that the courts provide oversight is truly risible. As Mother Jones points out: “The FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] has declined just 11 of the more than 33,900 surveillance requests made by the government in 33 years” — a rate of 0.03 percent. The sad truth is that FISA has become little more than a rubber stamp, effectively affording the NSA and CIA carte blanche.

The request at hand, made and approved just three weeks after Clapper’s denial, was to collect metadata on all cellphones running on the Verizon network. Even given the most generous interpretation, does this really tally with what Clapper claimed or with the rules by which the NSA is ostensibly governed? I think not.