Lucille
02-20-2014, 11:33 AM
http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/20/rand-paul-its-time-to-trash-the-nsas-ma
Writing in The Guardian website’s “Comment is Free” page, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was "somewhat disingenuous" when he claimed in a recent interview with The Daily Beast that much of the uproar surrounding Edward Snowden’s revelations related to the NSA’s activities could have been avoided if the intelligence community had been more transparent in the wake of 9/11.
[...]
The United States needs intelligence gathering, the ability to obtain and keep secrets, spying on foreign powers and genuine threats and all the other tools nations use to protect their security. No one is disputing this.
But Clapper is being somewhat disingenuous here. Part of the reason our government does some things behind Americans' backs is not for security, but because certain activities, if known, would outrage the public.
Spying on every American certainly falls into this category. I also believe it is blatantly unconstitutional, and bringing these activities to light would immediately spark debates the NSA would rather not hear.
The notion that if the NSA had informed us they were monitoring every American would somehow make it OK, does not make it OK. Explaining why you are violating the Fourth Amendment does not invalidate the Fourth Amendment.
Paul concludes his op-ed by saying,
It's time to trash the NSA's mass surveillance of Americans, for good.
Unsurprisingly, given that The Guardian is a U.K.-based paper, some of the commenters are upset that Paul didn’t say that the NSA's mass surveillance of everyone, not just Americans, should be scrapped.
Writing in The Guardian website’s “Comment is Free” page, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was "somewhat disingenuous" when he claimed in a recent interview with The Daily Beast that much of the uproar surrounding Edward Snowden’s revelations related to the NSA’s activities could have been avoided if the intelligence community had been more transparent in the wake of 9/11.
[...]
The United States needs intelligence gathering, the ability to obtain and keep secrets, spying on foreign powers and genuine threats and all the other tools nations use to protect their security. No one is disputing this.
But Clapper is being somewhat disingenuous here. Part of the reason our government does some things behind Americans' backs is not for security, but because certain activities, if known, would outrage the public.
Spying on every American certainly falls into this category. I also believe it is blatantly unconstitutional, and bringing these activities to light would immediately spark debates the NSA would rather not hear.
The notion that if the NSA had informed us they were monitoring every American would somehow make it OK, does not make it OK. Explaining why you are violating the Fourth Amendment does not invalidate the Fourth Amendment.
Paul concludes his op-ed by saying,
It's time to trash the NSA's mass surveillance of Americans, for good.
Unsurprisingly, given that The Guardian is a U.K.-based paper, some of the commenters are upset that Paul didn’t say that the NSA's mass surveillance of everyone, not just Americans, should be scrapped.