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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOfficials’ defenses of NSA phone program may be unraveling
From the moment the governments massive database of citizens call records was exposed this year, U.S. officials have clung to two main lines of defense: The secret surveillance program was constitutional and critical to keeping the nation safe.
But six months into the controversy triggered by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the viability of those claims is no longer clear.
In a three-day span, those rationales were upended by a federal judge who declared that the program was probably unconstitutional and the release of a report by a White House panel utterly unconvinced that stockpiling such data had played any meaningful role in preventing terrorist attacks.
Either of those developments would have been enough to ratchet up the pressure on President Obama, who must decide whether to stand behind the sweeping collection or dismantle it and risk blame if there is a terrorist attack.
Beyond that dilemma for the president, the decision by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon and the recommendations from the review panel shifted the footing of almost every major player in the surveillance debate.
U.S. officials who have dismissed NSA critics as naive about the true nature of the terrorist threat now face the findings of a panel handpicked by Obama and with access to classified files. Among its members were former deputy CIA director Michael J. Morrell and former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard A. Clarke, both of whom spent years immersed in intelligence reports on al-Qaeda.
A day after the panels report was made public, U.S. officials said its findings had stunned senior officials at the White House as well as at U.S. intelligence services, prompting a scramble to assess the potential effect of its proposals as well as to calculate its political fallout.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/officials-defenses-of-nsa-phone-program-may-be-unraveling/2013/12/19/6927d8a2-68d3-11e3-ae56-22de072140a2_story.html
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)that two of the biggest assholes in the country, Judge Richard Leon and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, are among those in the forefront in opposing domestic espionage.
Strange bedfellows indeed
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)mike_c
(36,214 posts)I know, it isn't funny, but still. The hunt for additional character flaws to dangle as shiny distractions is on!
Rex
(65,616 posts)nt.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)whose first reaction upon hearing the revelation of a whistle-blower is, "They lie, they lie, they lie", cant claim to be "politically liberal."