Mom was wrong about lying. She said no one would trust a liar. No one likes a liar. It's better to tell the truth because for one thing, it's easier to remember. She said that liars never get anywhere and won't be successful in life. Her most ardent argument against lying was, "You'll have a sore tongue the day after you tell a lie".
That worked when I was a little kid. It sort of worked when I was a teenager. It's mostly worked most of my life. She certainly was right about the "truth" being easier to remember.
I can't explain Jay Carney.
Transcript from yesterday's Press Briefing:
Q -- today revealed details of another NSAI wonder if he has a sore tongue today?
top-secret program -- this one called X-Keyscore, and it allows analysts to search not just metadata but the content of emails, search history without prior approval. Did the administration let members -- any members of Congress know about this before today?MR. CARNEY: As we've explained, and the intelligence community has explained, allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are false. Access to all of NSA's analytic tools is limited to only those personnel who require access for their assigned tasks. And there are multiple technical manual and supervisory checks and balances within the system to prevent those who don't have access from achieving that access.
For further information, I'd refer you to the intelligence community.
Q The question was, were there any members of Congress who were informed about the existence of X-Keyscore?
MR. CARNEY: Well, the question was frontloaded with assertions that I had an answer to --
Q -- the details of this program which were revealed today. But the question is, were there any members of Congress who were informed before today about the existence of the program or its capabilities?
MR. CARNEY: I would refer you to the intelligence community, to the ODNI for more information about that.
Q But in the past, the administration has used the fact that it's informed members of Congress as justification for these surveillance programs. Are you not able to give us an assurance that Congress --
MR. CARNEY: I'd would refer you -- I'm saying that I don't know the answer to that, and I would refer you to the intelligence community --
Q So you don't know whether Congress was informed?
MR. CARNEY: Again, I would refer you to the intelligence community. What I did do is assert that some of the claims made in that article are false. So informing people about false claims isn't necessarily what we do.