Amid reports that two federal agencies already embroiled in scandal may have shared confidential information with other agencies, a former Democratic Party pollster is calling the actions "an attack on the American people."
"Never in Washington have we had this assault on democracy and had the opposition party asleep, and had the media give up its role protecting the people," Pat Caddell, who worked in the Jimmy Carter White House, told Fox News Channel.
Despite Caddell's slam on the media, some outlets have in recent days reported that the
Internal Revenue Service may have shared confidential taxpayer information with the Federal Elections Commission and that the
National Security Agency is sharing the data it collects to aid criminal investigations not related to terrorism.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., both defended the NSA program on Sunday news talk shows, and said accusations by leaker Edward Snowden are overblown. Caddell said that such talk from the bipartisan "pro-government secrecy alliance of the political elite" was "B.S."
Using information obtained by spying power to prosecute criminal cases is "absolutely prohibited," former Judge Andrew Napolitano told Fox News. It is both a violation of the Fourth Amendment and of statute, he said.
Seventy-five percent of Americans believe the NSA is taking their records and using wrongly sharing them, Caddell said. "And do you know what? They're right."