John McCain Wants Congress to Investigate NSA

Sen. John McCain may be a hawk, but that apparently doesn’t stop him from becoming a conspicuous, if incongruous, member of the chorus of critics demanding accountability on the highest levels of government when it comes to the U.S. administration’s surveillance practices.

In fact, McCain is putting a little Arizona heat on his former challenger for the White House by calling for a special congressional investigation into the National Security Agency. However, his is hardly risky (or, upon closer inspection, particularly specific) commentary, voiced as it was just days away from Obama’s imminent announcement, scheduled for Friday, about how he plans to deal with the NSA after Edward Snowden’s exposes about the intelligence agency.

The Guardian brought word of McCain’s sort-of salvo on Sunday:

McCain told CNN on Sunday that Congress was probably going to need to pass legislation to implement Obama’s recommendations, and was obliged to run its own investigation into the wider controversy over US surveillance.

“Is there anybody believes that this system is not broken in many respects? I think not,” he said.

“There has been overreach, it seems to me,” he added. “Sometimes these agencies have done things just because they can. I think we need a select committee in Congress to go over this whole scenario, because it does overlap many committees.”

–Posted by Kasia Anderson