General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Greenwald makes another Snowden dump. This time Brazil papers. US spied on millions of e-mails calls [View all]MADem
(135,425 posts)I also don't know how "blanket" this surveillance actually was. All we have is a runner's say-so, a couple of power point slides, a FISA warrant that does not say what he says it says, and his assertions.
I could give Glenn Greenwald an interview and authoritatively state that I was an astronaut....but I'd imagine he'd want more proof than he apparently demanded of Snowden. He didn't understand the material he was publishing, he didn't even understand the meaning or definition of "metadata" and yet he plowed on. Intelligence is not gathered in a vacuum, I do know that much. Greenwald would have people believe that some schmuck was listening in on all your calls to Granny, and that's just not true.
There's more to learn here, certainly--I just am not impressed with the way Snowden chose to approach this, AND I am wondering if a third nation actor is involved as well (not counting the asylum offerers, mind you). I don't think we're seeing the full picture here--and I don't mean the material that Snowden stole (which likely the Chinese and Russians have already seen).
I also don't find it helpful that Obama, quite personally and with invective, is being accused on a Democratic message board of acting in an extra-judicial fashion, when that has not been demonstrated by ANY court ruling to this point in time.
Someone, surely, will petition the Supremes for a ruling on all of the law surrounding FISA -- they will probably do it in chunks. We'll have to wait and see if they take the case, and if they do, what they have to say about it. Until then, to say "This law is UNCONSTITUTIONAL" is just an assertion, not a fact--and it's made even more complicated by the "fact" that the FISA judges are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The Supremes decide what is constitutional and what's not--not me or anyone else. That is how our system works. If people don't like their ruling, that's the time to go for an amendment.