{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://sanford.house.gov//media-center/press-releases/sanford-statement-on-declassified-nsa-documents", "Sanford Statement on Declassified NSA Documents", "2013-11-19", "2013", "2013-11", "Republican", "House", "SC", "Mark Sanford", "S000051", "sanford.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Late Monday night more than 1,000 pages of declassified files concerning the National Security Agency\u2019s collection of American citizen\u2019s phone records were released by the Obama Administration. \u00a0While heavily redacted, these files show that the government in part attributed their violations of surveillance rules to \u201cpoor management, lack of involvement by compliance officials and lack of internal verification procedures, not by bad faith.\u201d There are many cures for this, and a vital one rests in someone indeed making sure there is compliance. H.R. 3436, Representative Sanford\u2019s bill, would create an independent Inspector General\u2019s office at the NSA, just as is the case at the CIA, Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security. Representative Sanford had this to say, \u201cIt\u2019s not exactly surprising that if your career and work prospects aren\u2019t in the hands of the person who you are attempting to assess, you can be more independent in your assessment. Only in government would someone think that an employee, a direct subordinate, should be charged with the job of assessing the work of the boss. It\u2019s nice in theory, but when your ability to make the mortgage payment can be determined by the tenor of your findings, tenor changes and we see the results of doing so with this declassifying of files.\u201d \u201cFour years ago when the government knew that they had violated surveillance protocols, they blamed it on a lack of oversight, but they didn\u2019t take the step of creating an independent Inspector General\u2019s office at the NSA,\u201d said Sanford. \u201cDespite the fact that this process already exists in the other intelligence related agencies.\u201d \u201cYesterday\u2019s disclosures further reinforce the need for making this change at the NSA, to ensure that the Inspector General\u2019s office is operating with independence and is conducting effective oversight,\u201d said Sanford. You can read more about H.R. 3436 here.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://sanford.house.gov//media-center/press-releases/sanford-statement-on-declassified-nsa-documents"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8144790772348642, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}