How Much of the Iceberg Can We See at This Point?
I've read quite a bit about the domestic spying scandal, including in the comments on thsi blog, but I wonder, how much of the story do we know, at this point? It seems to me that we don't know very much. Why is that important?
Because isn't the pattern that these stories always get worse, the more we know? Practices that might be defensible, in certain circumstances, become completely indefensible when we know just how widespread those practices were. Or when we know just how those powers, perhaps defensible in principle, were used on a day-to-day basis?
posted by Number Three @ 7:16 AM
1 Comments:
One of the interesting things about this scandal is how quickly it has ALREADY escalated from bad to worse.
The first report in the NYT suggested that this was relatively small scale and that it only involved international calls and specific persons with links to terror groups. I'm not even sure if they mentioned that it might involve tapping of U.S. citizens as opposed to foreign nationals on U.S. soil. Now we know that this was a massive program, that it involved spying on U.S. citizens, many or most of whom may have had no discernible link to terror groups, that many of the intercepts where wholly domestic, that there may have been some especially intrusive data mining technology involved (reminiscent of Poindexter's foiled TIA plan?), that the only informed members of Congress were sworn to extreme secrecy while their clear objections were ignored, and that improperly obtained info may have been used to obtain FISA warrants, provoking one judge to now resign in protest. If that's the first week, I can't wait to see what's still coming. I hope this finally helps to drive a stake through the canard that Republicans are somehow the party of "rule of law" and strict construction of the Constitution. It has always been a joke, but now it should be a point of ridicule.
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