Eugene Robinson asks "What NSA reforms?"
Eugene Robinson asks "What NSA reforms?"
The modest reforms Obama proposed do not begin to address the fundamental question of whether we want the National Security Agency to log all of our phone calls and read at least some of our e-mails, relying on secret judicial orders from a secret court for permission. The president indicated he is willing to discuss how all this is done — but not whether.
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The administration white paper says we shouldn’t worry because this reasoning would not apply, say, to medical records or library records. But we have no way of knowing what other encroachments on the Bill of Rights the intelligence court might have blessed, because the court’s rulings are classified.
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What real difference would that make, though, if we are still denied the right to know about secret court rulings that redefine and abridge our constitutional rights? I’ll believe Obama is serious about reforming the intelligence court when he calls for all its interpretations of the law — without details of specific orders that would tip off terrorists — to be made public.
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And I’ll believe Congress is serious when it clarifies the Patriot Act and other laws to spell out that the Constitution still applies. The NSA’s capability to obliterate privacy is rampaging ahead. The law desperately needs to catch up.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-what-nsa-reforms/2013/08/12/62e04e0c-037f-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html?hpid=z2