Cracks Widen In The Armor Of The Surveillance State [View all]

[WillyT]

Cracks widen in the armor of the surveillance state
Thursday, August 1, 2013 at 11:26 am by Shahid Buttar



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Members of Congress sensitive to constitutional limits on executive power have introduced no fewer than a dozen bills to curtail NSA spying. Most of them would do nothing to address the most recent disclosures from journalist Glenn Greenwald. Until the full scope of NSA spying is revealed to the public, congressional remedies for constitutional violations will remain insufficient.

Unfortunately, while Snowden’s disclosures may enable further facts to finally emerge about NSA abuses, transparency is generally waning despite President Obama’s rhetorical commitment to it.

The latest revelations of NSA domestic spying include new information about the government’s ability to intercept social network communications, email metadata and content, and other online content–all without a judicial warrant.

Beyond the particular details about Xkeyscore, however, lies a more disturbing implication: neither the press, nor the public, nor even Congress have any idea of the full extent to which the NSA is spying on Americans.

And if the latest results from the war on whistleblowers is any indication, each of these sectors will remain in the dark going forward, executive abuses will continue to mount, and our system of constitutional checks & balances will creak as executive secrecy continues to impede review from either Congress or the courts.

Congress legislating in the dark…

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More: http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/?p=14458#.Uf1zcdK86So