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The James Clapper Experience • Cabinet No. 1

Not
Wittingly

In 2013 the Director of National Intelligence was asked whether the NSA collects data on millions of Americans. The answer was “No, sir… not wittingly.” Everything in that answer is carried by the adverb. This cabinet hands you the adverbs and asks you to do better, and then — quietly, without asking permission — teaches you to spot them everywhere else.

OPEN SESSION • THE STENOGRAPHER IS TYPING • SIX MONTHS IS THE STANDARD
Survivability — counsel’s estimate—
Slime — how it reads to a normal person0
Question 1 / 8

 

 
The question, as put to you

 

Your answer, as it will appear in the transcript

Qualifier tray — tap a word, then tap a gap. Tap a placed word to take it back.

Fewest words that still hold. Every extra word is heard.
Six Months Later
 
 
 
 

You Have Been Sworn In.

Eight questions. Each one has a plain, true answer that would end a career if you said it flat. You are not permitted to lie. You are permitted to choose words.

The tray holds twelve qualifiers. Six months after every answer, the facts land, and your sentence is read back against them by people with subpoena power and no sense of humour. Survive with the fewest words possible. Stack too many and you survive the hearing and lose the room, which is worse.

WING DOCTRINE: We take the answer completely at face value. That is the whole point. Nobody here is calling anybody a liar — a liar would be simple, and a liar can be caught. Our objection is procedural: somewhere in the building there is a person whose job is the adverb, that person is very good at their job, they have never once been named in a headline, and their work product is read aloud to the public on television by somebody else. This cabinet is a training course. It is, unfortunately, also completely real.