Lying has certainly come a long way in the new century. Those of us us born in the 1900′s can still remember a time when being caught publicly lying could bring down a President (Nixon), or at the very least, get one impeached (Clinton). In those sepia-toned days, lying was a content-neutral affront; Barry Goldwater was just as justifiably incensed at being lied to by Nixon as Al Gore was at being lied to by Clinton, despite the rather gigantic difference between the significance of their respective lies.

But something odd happened when George W. Bush entered office.

I’ve noticed that in an effort to discredit Edward Snowden many are trying to create a new standard for the term “whistle-blower” so they can deny him the title. According to people such as Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a whistle-blower must reveal “wrongdoing, corruption, illegal activity.” Apparently, revealing the existence of secret programs with serious potential for abuse is not good enough.

The head of the National Security Agency General Keith Alexander will testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee today at 2 pm EST. The hearing was scheduled prior to the bombshell revelations published by the Guardian of NSA spying programs targeting American citizens.

Not only did Director of National Intelligence James Clapper purposely give misleading answers to Congress while under oath to hide the existence of NSA programs, but he also apparently lies about what these programs accomplished. The Obama administration declassified details about a terrorist plot that was supposedly stopped by PRISM, but Clapper got the basic details wrong. From the Huffington Post:

Not only are the prepared deceptive answers given by Director of National Intelligence General James Clapper in Congressional testimony potentially serious crimes, but the entire incident completely undermines President Obama defense of the newly reviled NSA domestic surveillance programs.

In testimony before Congress the Director of National Intelligence General James Clapper claimed there was no program to collect information on American citizens.

The whistleblower inside government, who is providing The Guardian‘s Glenn Greenwald with information on top secret government surveillance programs that eight years ago would have been alarming to those in Congress has not only provided the public with information citizens have a right to know. This source has also forced the government to be more transparent about the programs because officials believe the disclosures are “misleading” about the nature of the programs.

Measures aimed at preventing leaks among United States government employees in the US intelligence community have been announced by the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. The measures are being instituted as a result of recent news stories on cyberwarfare against Iran and a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) underwear bomb plot sting operation in Yemen that included unauthorized disclosures on those operations.

The Director of National Intelligence has floated a “shockingly bad” proposal on how much review GAO will be permitted within the intelligence community. According to Steven Aftergood, because the proposal defines the intelligence community broadly, it might result in the loss of GAO review in agencies like DOD and State.

Most of the folks running DC may not much care that our middle class has disappeared along with our manufacturing base. But convince them that our declining manufacturing base might imperil their cherished military might, and they might finally wake up.