I've actually been pretty careful about not locking into a position on the substance of the NSA story because I've had the sense from the beginning that there's just too much we don't know yet.Thank you! If I were smart I'd let that be a full stop, but I am talky and not smart and there's a reason for the title of this blog, so I share in some of Goldberg's tentative conclusions. This:
First, James Clapper simply lied to Congress. I understand why he did. But from what I can tell, most of the people who lie to Congress do so for what they think are good reasons (Lois Lerner is an exception to that rule). That Clapper was unprepared to answer that question in a way that wasn't objectively deceitful amounts to gross malpractice.But most especially this:
Edward Snowden is fishier than the Frying Dutchman's All-You-Can-Eat Seafood Buffet. I'm not saying he's a Chinese agent or anything. Or, better said, I'm not saying he revealed all of this stuff as an agent of the Chinese. He might be auditioning for the position now. After all, you kind of lose some street cred when you bitch about the evil of the surveillance state and a lack of transparency and then set up shop in China. It's sort of like quitting your job as a lighting technician at the Mickey Mouse Club because you don't approve of the lax moral standards and then applying for a job at the Spearmint Rhino. Regardless, I think he's pretty clearly lying about what he was able to do as a cog in the NSA machine. He says he had the "authorities" to read anyone's e-mail, including the president's. I call shenanigans on this -- or at least the experts I've talked to do. It's unclear he even had the capability, which is a very different thing than the authority. I have the capability to drive my car through the window of a crowded Chipotle Mexican Grill and proclaim, "I came here to do two things: Chew gum and eat burritos, and I'm all out of gum!" That doesn't mean I have the authority to do such a thing.He seems like just another clueless young person who thinks he's the moral center of the universe. All of which is merely a set-up for this, curtsies to Brutally Honest (Hey, and thanks for the recent link-love, Man!):
More seriously -- and back to Goldberg:
This brings us to a really important distinction in all this: Existence vs. Abuse. I am coming around to the view that the program as it exists isn't necessarily outrageous on the merits. As far as we know so far, Snowden hasn't revealed any actual abuses of the program. And his hints about abuses are like bad pretzels: impossible to swallow without a lot of grains of salt. Now, you can argue that the existence of the program itself is, uh, itself an outrage. I have many friends who think this. I am truly torn on this question.Me too. I haven't read anything yet about the program that offends me per se. What offends me is that in light of the IRS, FBI, DoJ and other scandals, it's patently obvious this administration will abuse any power it has. That it is more likely to use its powers to torment its domestic political enemies than to keep us safe. But the proposed solutions -- removing the powers to keep us safe-- don't exactly thrill me. In fact, Edward Snowden's morality seems of a piece with that of the Administration to me. We're in the hands of folks with no allegiances beyond their own belly buttons, no broad understanding of the world, and no self-restraint. That's what's really scary.
Update: See Michael Walsh's column on this topic. The Courts have held that the content of phone calls is private but the records of who calls whom isn't. So in the service of getting bad guys, I don't disapprove. But as Walsh connects the dots, this administration isn't going after bad guys, only after Americans who disagree with them.
