Reply #34: "We had the power"

[dreamnightwind]

I don't usually take the time to read such long articles. Having read this article, it was worth the time, a rare moment when the curtain is pulled back a little on the state of our national surveillance apparatus. Thinking of the kinds of searches they could do with this data, multidimensional queries that can merge data that tracks activities across all aspects of our lives, not good. We don't want anyone to have this capability.

Also not good is Michael Hayden, and the White House that put him up to it.

"In the weeks after the attacks, rumors began circulating inside the N.S.A. that the agency, with the approval of the Bush White House, was violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act—the 1978 law, known as FISA, that bars domestic surveillance without a warrant. Years later, the rumors were proved correct. In nearly total secrecy, and under pressure from the White House, Hayden sanctioned warrantless domestic surveillance."

...

"She asked Hayden why the N.S.A. had chosen not to include privacy protections for Americans. She says that he “kept not answering. Finally, he mumbled, and looked down, and said, ‘We didn’t need them. We had the power.’"