Nothing worse for the Democratic Party or the United States than the spying apologists who

[jeff47]

2. Nah, there is something worse

That's all the Democrats who attack other Democrats for doing something they did not do.

Such as this lie:

the spying apologists who believe Americans cannot be trusted to use the internet and live our lives without an NSA chaperone.

I realize this is a very appealing lie. You can rage against it instead of dealing with the pesky reality of SCOTUS decisions, and the details of what was actually leaked.

But that doesn't make it true. And bashing people for a lie you like does not help. Either with fixing the problem, or electing more Democrats so we can fix the problem. Because you can not fix a problem when you lie about it.

Snowden, Manning, et al have so far leaked one program that spied on US persons. One. The phone metadata program. Every other leaked program targeted a non-US person. Non-US Persons do not have any constitutional rights. Even when they are Chancellor of Germany. If the NSA was really doing massive spying on US persons, how come they didn't leak a second program? Possibly even a third?

The phone metadata program fits nicely under an overly-broad 1979 SCOTUS ruling that made your phone metadata no more private than what you ordered the last time you went to a resturaunt. Or bought at the grocery store. Or any other routine business record.

To fix it, we need a new law from Congress. Sure, the President could tell the NSA to stop, but that won't stop future presidents. More importantly, it won't stop private spying - your phone metadata is available to anyone willing to buy it.

Appealing lies will not get us that fix.