I know this will, forever, brand me the NSA Defending, lackey of authoritarianism; but ...

[Jim Lane]

193. Greetings to a lackey from a right-wing troll.

It's really sad how often DU discussions deteriorate into such personal attacks. You support one action of the Obama administration, so you're a lackey, not to mention an Obamabot who believes The Leader can do no wrong. I oppose one such action, so I must secretly want Sarah Palin to be President, or (according to one post in this thread) I must "worship at the church of St. Snowden".

As for your specific point, I agree that transparency shouldn't get to the level of "Our informant Jeff Smith, of 1015 Cedar Avenue in Keystone City, heard Ibrahim Mansour make a remark that seemed sort of sympathetic to Muslim extremists, so we've gotten an order authorizing a tap on Mansour's home phone." There should, however, be transparency about what, in general, is being done, and on what basis. For example, although specific applications for probable cause needn't be made public, we should have a better idea of what standards are being applied and what evidence is considered acceptable.

You mention the collection of meta-data. As you acknowledge, we aren't certain that your summary is accurate, and even that much became known only well after the fact. That's an example of where more transparency is needed.