Regardless of his motivations and methods, Edward Snowden raised necessary questions and caused endless systematic reconsideration within the intelligence community. And while a part of me has always been certain that the Powers That Be would pinpoint the mildly extralegal activities of Snowden's biggest worries and craft a very special law just to sanction whatever thing wide-awake people might balk at, fact is, I think the revelations might have caused a little change from compliant private communications network companies and US gov't officials who did not want to deal with this question.And what recently came to pass was:
In a 53-page opinion, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III said Friday that the program, which collects virtually all Americans’ phone records, represents the U.S. government’s “counter-punch” to eliminate the al-Qaeda terrorist network and does not violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.
Pauley endorsed the assertion made by government officials that if the United States had the phone data collection program before 2001, they might have had a better chance at preventing the Sept. 11 attacks.
Which probably brings us just that much closer to there being a law making this exactly okay. I'm still conflicted about this, naturally. But at least someone has declared the metadata collection program totes magoats kosher. And that is a start, no?
3 comments:
I'm not conflicted, at all.
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Happy New Year, Vixen, and all my liberal friends!
This is one of those issues that that have divided sentiments in both parties. Conservatives are big on security, and we are also big on government not interfering unnecessarily in private lives. We like small government.
Liberals have a big concern about government prying into their privacy and, I gather, would prefer measured steps in trying to keep up with al Qaeda. This is one of those issues that shows how both parties have gone all Dr. Strangelove, because you will have a lot of people on both sides in both parties.
George Washington was against the idea of political parties, because he felt that people could become more loyal to their party than to the United States.
Today both parties have become so venomous that many people look for their ideological position first and consider the issue second. Our polarization may very well destroy the country.
And this Snowden deal is an issue that kind of puts quotation marks around the destructiveness of this polarization.
However one feels about Snowden should be entirely irrespective of who is in power or what the political propagandists would like to make of it. It is either bad, not so bad, or good, irrespective of Democrats or Republicans.
--Formerly Amherst
I think there has to be some sensible balance that is both mindful of privacy while ensuring that intelligence services can access the information that is, well warranted, but my reservation regarding the approach being used is of the "given an inch, they will take a mile" variety. I can understand intelligence-gathering methods being "in the dark" in some respects in that they'd prefer their methods not being evaded. At the same time, though, people have a right to know what the government "has on us" and as taxpayers and citizens, we have an interest in oversight of those agencies to ensure they aren't overly intrusive or arbitrary. I've never looked at it as an "either/or" question, but I think I do worry that the discussion seems like security/privacy proponents talking past one another.
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