Senator Ron Wyden: White House considering scaling back data collection

[ConservativeDemocrat]

79. Political capital is indeed the essence of it

If there were solid 98% Democratic majorities in all states, and terrorism did not capture the imaginations of the public quite so vividly, then sure, scale it back. Not because I believe it is really against the 4th Amendment (metadata = outside of mail envelopes), but because a lot of it is a waste of money.

The real Snowden scandal was skipped over on nearly the first day: that the government was paying $200,000 for a highschool dropout. Money like that, paid to likely everyone in the NSA, is a lot of school teachers, parks, lunches, and head-start classes. Things that would be better.

But back to the point, we don't live in that kind of world. To my mind President Obama is spending his political capitol very wisely. At least if you measure it in lives. 'Obamacare' is literally going to save hundreds of thousands of American lives over the next ten years. Had be been able to get some common-sense background checks through Congress (which he tried to by spending his political capitol), it would have saved hundreds of thousands more. And his unilateral actions to scale back global warming is the first start at trying to save humanity from itself. Potentially billions.

How many people's lives would be directly saved if the NSA were entirely disbanded? I'm not sure you could say any.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community