Eugene Robinson | Ending the 9/11 Panic Mentality at the NSA Once and For All

[kpete]

Eugene Robinson | Ending the 9/11 Panic Mentality at the NSA Once and For All


............

In plain language, the panel lays out just what the NSA has been doing: obtaining secret court orders compelling phone service providers to "turn over to the government on an ongoing basis call records for every telephone call made in, to, or from the United States through their respective systems."

That is a jaw-dropping sentence. No less stunning, however, is the panel's assessment of the program's worth as a tool to fight terrorism: from all available evidence, zero.

......

Somehow, the NSA has transformed itself from an agency whose mission was overseas surveillance to one that vacuums and stores massive amounts of information about our private communications. This isn't mission-creep; it's more like mission-gallop.

Unless we want to accept an Orwellian future in which privacy is a distant memory -- and I don't -- we need to limit the NSA's authority to surveillance of legitimate foreign targets.

..........

MORE:
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18375-robinson-ending-panic-mentality-nsa

[BellaKos]

1. Finally somebody said it!

Finally, finally, finally. And amen.

[JEB]

2. Eugene Robinson always the common sense point of view tempered

with his good humor. He certainly does lay it all out there for us to see. 9-11 panic indeed.

[bvar22]

3. Clearly, Eugene Robinson does not read DU,

....or he would have been corrected by the ever present Pro-NSA acolytes.

[AzDar]

4. K & R

[kentuck]

5. kick

needs repeating.

[woo me with science]

6. K&R