DNI James Clapper's Letter Apologizing to Congress
The letter that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote to apologize to Congress about his testimony in March 2013 regarding NSA surveillance of American citizens is now publicly available.
Here's the letter in full, and here is an excerpt of the relevant paragraphs:
I have thought long and hard to re-create what went through my mind at the time.
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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The letter that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote to apologize to Congress about his testimony in March 2013 regarding NSA surveillance of American citizens is now publicly available.
Here's the letter in full, and here is an excerpt of the relevant paragraphs:
I have thought long and hard to re-create what went through my mind at the time. In light of Senator Wyden's reference to "dossiers" and faced with the challenge of trying to give an unclassified answer about our intelligence collection activities, many of which are classified, I simply didn't think of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Instead, my answer addressed collection of the content of communications. I focused in particular on Section 702 of FISA, because we had just been through a year-long campaign to seek reauthorization of this provision and had had many classified discussions about it, including with Senator Wyden. That is why I added a comment about "inadvertent" collection of U.S. person information, because that is what happens under Section 702 even though it is targeted at foreigners. That said, I realized late that Senator Wyden was asking about Section 215 metadata collection, rather than content collection. Thus, my response was clearly erroneous---for which I apologize. While my staff acknowledged the error to Senator Wyden's staff soon after the hearing, I can now openly correct it because the existence of the metadata collection program has been declassified.
Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT.
Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.
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