FOCUS | The Two Centers of Unaccountable Power in America
Saturday, 15 June 2013 09:51
Reich: writes: "There are two great centers of unaccountable power in the American political-economic system today - places where decisions that significantly affect large numbers of Americans are made in secret, and are unchecked either by effective democratic oversight or by market competition."
Portrait, Robert Reich, 08/16/09. (photo: Perian Flaherty)
The Two Centers of Unaccountable Power in America
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
15 June 13
here are two great centers of unaccountable power in the American political-economic system today - places where decisions that significantly affect large numbers of Americans are made in secret, and are unchecked either by effective democratic oversight or by market competition.
One goes by the name of the "intelligence community" and its epicenter is the National Security Agency within the Defense Department. If we trusted that it reasonably balanced its snooping on Americans with our nation's security needs, and that our elected representatives effectively oversaw that balance, there would be little cause for concern. We would not worry that the information so gathered might be misused to harass individuals, thereby chilling free speech or democratic debate, or that some future government might use it to intimidate critics and opponents. We would feel confident, in other words, that despite the scale and secrecy of the operation, our privacy, civil liberties, and democracy were nonetheless adequately protected.
But the NSA has so much power, and oversight of it is so thin, that we have every reason to be concerned. The fact that its technological reach is vast, its resources almost limitless, and its operations are shrouded in secrecy, make it difficult for a handful of elected representatives to effectively monitor even a tiny fraction of what it does. And every new revelation of its clandestine "requests" for companies to hand over information about our personal lives and communications further undermines our trust. To the contrary, the NSA seems to be literally out of control.
The second center of unaccountable power goes by the name of Wall Street and is centered in the largest banks there. If we trusted that market forces kept them in check and that they did not exercise inordinate influence over Congress and the executive branch, we would have no basis for concern. We wouldn't worry that the Street's financial power would be misused to fix markets, profit from insider information, or make irresponsible bets that imperiled the rest of us. We could be confident that despite the size and scope of the giant banks, our economy and everyone who depends on it were nonetheless adequately protected.
But those banks are now so large (much larger than they were when they almost melted down five years ago), have such a monopolistic grip on our financial system, and exercise so much power over Washington, that we have cause for concern. The fact that not a single Wall Street executive has been held legally accountable for the excesses that almost brought the economy to its knees five years ago and continues to burden millions of Americans, that even the Attorney General confesses the biggest banks are "too big to jail," that the big banks continue to make irresponsible bets (such as those resulting in JP Morgan Chase's $6 billion "London Whale" loss), and that the Street has effectively eviscerated much of the Dodd-Frank legislation intended to rein in its excesses and avoid another meltdown and bailout, all offer evidence that the Street is still dangerously out of control.
It is rare in these harshly partisan times for the political left and right to agree on much of anything. But the reason, I think, both are worried about the encroachments of the NSA on the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, as well as the depredations of "too big to fail or jail" Wall Street banks on our economy, is fundamentally the same: It is this toxic combination of inordinate power and lack of accountability that renders both of them dangerous, threatening our basic values and institutions.
That neither Republicans nor Democrats have done much of anything to effectively rein in these two centers of unaccountable power suggests that, if there is ever to be a viable third party in America, it will may borne of the ill-fated consequences.
Robert B. Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock" and "The Work of Nations." His latest is an e-book, "Beyond Outrage." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=7181"><span class="small">Glenn Greenwald, Guardian UK</span></a>
Saturday, 15 June 2013 08:09
Greenwald writes: "What we have reported thus far is merely 'the tip of the iceberg' of what the NSA is doing in spying on Americans and the world."
(illustration: unknown)
Just the Tip of the Iceberg
By Glenn Greenwald, Guardian UK
15 June 13
Addressing many of the issues arising from last week's NSA stories
haven't been able to write this week here because I've been participating in the debate over the fallout from last week's NSA stories, and because we are very busy working on and writing the next series of stories that will begin appearing very shortly. I did, though, want to note a few points, and particularly highlight what Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez said after Congress on Wednesday was given a classified briefing by NSA officials on the agency's previously secret surveillance activities:
"What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today. . . . I can't speak to what we learned in there, and I don't know if there are other leaks, if there's more information somewhere, if somebody else is going to step up, but I will tell you that I believe it's the tip of the iceberg . . . . I think it's just broader than most people even realize, and I think that's, in one way, what astounded most of us, too."
The Congresswoman is absolutely right: what we have reported thus far is merely "the tip of the iceberg" of what the NSA is doing in spying on Americans and the world. She's also right that when it comes to NSA spying, "there is significantly more than what is out in the media today", and that's exactly what we're working to rectify.
But just consider what she's saying: as a member of Congress, she had no idea how invasive and vast the NSA's surveillance activities are. Sen. Jon Tester, who is a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said the same thing, telling MSNBC about the disclosures that "I don't see how that compromises the security of this country whatsoever" and adding: "quite frankly, it helps people like me become aware of a situation that I wasn't aware of before because I don't sit on that Intelligence Committee."
How can anyone think that it's remotely healthy in a democracy to have the NSA building a massive spying apparatus about which even members of Congress, including Senators on the Homeland Security Committee, are totally ignorant and find "astounding" when they learn of them? How can anyone claim with a straight face that there is robust oversight when even members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are so constrained in their ability to act that they are reduced to issuing vague, impotent warnings to the public about what they call radical "secret law" enabling domestic spying that would "stun" Americans to learn about it, but are barred to disclose what it is they're so alarmed by? Put another way, how can anyone contest the value and justifiability of the stories that we were able to publish as a result of Edward Snowden's whistleblowing: stories that informed the American public - including even the US Congress - about these incredibly consequential programs? What kind of person would think that it would be preferable to remain in the dark - totally ignorant - about them?
I have a column in the Guardian's newspaper edition tomorrow examining the fallout from these stories. That will be posted here and I won't repeat that now. I will, though, note the following brief items:
(1) Much of US politics, and most of the pundit reaction to the NSA stories, are summarized by this one single visual from Pew:
The most vocal media critics of our NSA reporting, and the most vehement defenders of NSA surveillance, have been, by far, Democratic (especially Obama-loyal) pundits. As I've written many times, one of the most significant aspects of the Obama legacy has been the transformation of Democrats from pretend-opponents of the Bush War on Terror and National Security State into their biggest proponents: exactly what the CIA presciently and excitedly predicted in 2008 would happen with Obama's election.
Some Democrats have tried to distinguish 2006 from 2013 by claiming that the former involved illegal spying while the latter does not. But the claim that current NSA spying is legal is dubious in the extreme: the Obama DOJ has repeatedly thwarted efforts by the ACLU, EFF and others to obtain judicial rulings on their legality and constitutionality by invoking procedural claims of secrecy, immunity and standing. If Democrats are so sure these spying programs are legal, why has the Obama DOJ been so eager to block courts from adjudicating that question?
More to the point, Democratic critiques of Bush's spying were about more than just legality. I know that because I actively participated in the campaign to amplify those critiques. Indeed, by 2006, most of Bush's spying programs - definitely his bulk collection of phone records - were already being conducted under the supervision and with the blessing of the FISA court. Moreover, leading members of Congress - including Nancy Pelosi - were repeatedly briefed on all aspects of Bush's NSA spying program. So the distinctions Democrats are seeking to draw are mostly illusory.
To see how that this is so, just listen to then-Senator Joe Biden in 2006 attack the NSA for collecting phone records: he does criticize the program for lacking FISA court supervision (which wasn't actually true), but also claims to be alarmed by just how invasive and privacy-destroying that sort of bulk record collection is. He says he "doesn't think" that the program passes the Fourth Amendment test: how can Bush's bulk record collection program be unconstitutional while Obama's program is constitutional? But Biden also rejected Bush's defense (exactly the argument Obama is making now) - that "we're not listening to the phone calls, we're just looking for patterns" - by saying this:
I don't have to listen to your phone calls to know what you're doing. If I know every single phone call you made, I'm able to determine every single person you talked to. I can get a pattern about your life that is very, very intrusive. . . . If it's true that 200 million Americans' phone calls were monitored - in terms of not listening to what they said, but to whom they spoke and who spoke to them - I don't know, the Congress should investigative this."
Is collecting everyone's phone records not "very intrusive" when Democrats are doing it? Just listen to that short segment to see how every defense Obama defenders are making now were the ones Bush defenders made back then. Again, leading members of Congress and the FISA court were both briefed on and participants in the Bush telephone record collection program as well, yet Joe Biden and most Democrats found those programs very alarming and "very intrusive" back then.
(2) Notwithstanding the partisan-driven Democratic support for these programs, and notwithstanding the sustained demonization campaign aimed at Edward Snowden from official Washington, polling data, though mixed, has thus far been surprisingly encouraging.
A Time Magazine poll found that 54% of Americans believe Snowden did "a good thing", while only 30% disagreed. That approval rating is higher than the one enjoyed by both Congress and President Obama. While a majority think he should be nonetheless prosecuted, a plurality of young Americans, who overwhelmingly view Snowden favorably, do not even want to see him charged. Reuters found that more Americans see Snowden as a "patriot" than a "traitor". A Gallup poll this week found that more Americans disapprove (53%) than approve (37%) of the two NSA spying programs revealed last week by the Guardian.
(3) Thomas Drake, an NSA whistleblower who was unsuccessfully prosecuted by the Obama DOJ, writes in the Guardian that as a long-time NSA official, he saw all of the same things at the NSA that Edward Snowden is now warning Americans about. Drake calls Snowden's acts "an amazingly brave and courageous act of civil disobedience." William Binney, the mathematician who resigned after a 30-year career as a senior NSA official in protest of post-9/11 domestic surveillance, said on Democracy Now this week that Snowden's claims about the NSA are absolutely true.
Meanwhile, Daniel Ellsberg, writing in the Guardian, wrote that "there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago." He added: "Snowden did what he did because he recognized the NSA's surveillance programs for what they are: dangerous, unconstitutional activity."
Listen to actual experts and patriots - people who have spent their careers inside the NSA and/or who risked their liberty for the good of the country - and the truth of Snowden's claims and the justifiability of his acts become manifest.
(4) As we were about to begin publishing these NSA stories, a veteran journalist friend warned me that the tactic used by Democratic partisans would be to cling to and then endlessly harp on any alleged inaccuracy in any one of the stories we publish as a means of distracting attention away from the revelations and discrediting the entire project. That proved quite prescient, as that is exactly what they are attempting to do.
Thus far we have revealed four independent programs: the bulk collection of telephone records, the Prism program, Obama's implementation of an aggressive foreign and domestic cyber-operations policy, and false claims by NSA officials to Congress. Every one of those articles was vetted by multiple Guardian editors and journalists - not just me. Democratic partisans have raised questions about only one of the stories - the only one that happened to be also published by the Washington Post (and presumably vetted by multiple Post editors and journalists) - in order to claim that an alleged inaccuracy in it means our journalism in general is discredited.
They are wrong. Our story was not inaccurate. The Washington Post revised parts of its article, but its reporter, Bart Gellman, stands by its core claims ("From their workstations anywhere in the world, government employees cleared for Prism access may 'task' the system and receive results from an Internet company without further interaction with the company's staff").
The Guardian has not revised any of our articles and, to my knowledge, has no intention to do so. That's because we did not claim that the NSA document alleging direct collection from the servers was true; we reported - accurately - that the NSA document claims that the program allows direct collection from the companies' servers. Before publishing, we went to the internet companies named in the documents and asked about these claims. When they denied it, we purposely presented the story as one of a major discrepancy between what the NSA document claims and what the internet companies claim, as the headline itself makes indisputably clear:
The NSA document says exactly what we reported. Just read it and judge for yourself (Prism is "collection directly from the servers of these US service providers"). It's endearingly naive how some people seem to think that because government officials or corporate executives issue carefully crafted denials, this resolves the matter. Read the ACLU's tech expert, Chris Soghoian, explain why the tech companies' denials are far less significant and far more semantic than many are claiming.
Nor do these denials make any sense. If all the tech companies are doing under Prism is providing what they've always provided to the NSA, but simply doing it by a different technological means, then why would a new program be necessary at all? How can NSA officials claim that a program that does nothing more than change the means for how this data is delivered is vital in stopping terrorist threats? Why does the NSA document hail the program as one that enables new forms of collection? Why would it be "top secret" if all this was were just some new way of transmitting court-ordered data? How is Prism any different in any meaningful way from how the relationship between the companies and the NSA has always functioned?
As a follow-up to our article, the New York Times reported on extensive secret negotiations between Silicon Valley executives and NSA officials over government access to the companies' data. It's precisely because these arrangements are secret and murky yet incredibly significant that we published our story about these conflicting claims. They ought to be resolved in public, not in secret. The public should know exactly what access the NSA is trying to obtain to the data of these companies, and should know exactly what access these companies are providing. Self-serving, unchecked, lawyer-vetted denials by these companies don't remotely resolve these questions.
In a Nation post yesterday, Rick Perlstein falsely accuses me of not having addressed the questions about the Prism story. I've done at least half-a-dozen television shows in the last week where I was asked about exactly those questions and answered fully with exactly what I've written here (see this appearance with Chris Hayes as just the latest example); the fact that Perlstein couldn't be bothered to use Google doesn't entitle him to falsely claim I haven't addressed these questions. I have done so repeatedly, and do so here again.
I know that many Democrats want to cling to the belief that, in Perlstein's words, "the powers that be will find it very easy to seize on this one error to discredit [my] NSA revelation, even the ones he nailed dead to rights". Perlstein cleverly writes that "such distraction campaigns are how power does its dirtiest work" as he promotes exactly that campaign.
But that won't happen. The documents and revelations are too powerful. The story isn't me, or Edward Snowden, or the eagerness of Democratic partisans to defend the NSA as a means of defending President Obama, and try as they might, Democrats won't succeed in making the story be any of those things. The story is the worldwide surveillance apparatus the NSA is constructing in the dark and the way that has grown under Obama, and that's where my focus is going to remain.
(5) NYU Journalism professor Jay Rosen examines complaints that my having strong, candidly acknowledged opinions on surveillance policies somehow means that the journalism I do on those issues is suspect. It is very worth reading what he has to say on this topic as it gets to the heart about several core myths about what journalism is.
(6) Last week, prior to the revelation of our source's identity, I wrote that "ever since the Nixon administration broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychoanalyst's office, the tactic of the US government has been to attack and demonize whistleblowers as a means of distracting attention from their own exposed wrongdoing and destroying the credibility of the messenger so that everyone tunes out the message" and "that attempt will undoubtedly be made here."
The predictable personality assaults on Snowden have begun in full force from official Washington and their media spokespeople. They are only going to intensify. There is nobody who political officials and their supine media class hate more than those who meaningfully dissent from their institutional orthodoxies and shine light on what they do. The hatred for such individuals is boundless.
There are two great columns on this dynamic. This one by Reuters' Jack Shafer explores how elite Washington reveres powerful leakers that glorify political officials, but only hate marginalized and powerless leakers who discredit Washington and its institutions. And perhaps the best column yet on Snowden comes this morning from the Daily Beast's Kirsten Powers: just please take the time to read it all, as it really conveys the political and psychological rot that is driving the attacks on him and on his very carefully vetted disclosures.
UPDATE
The New York Times reports today that Yahoo went to court in order to vehemently resist the NSA's directive that they join the Prism program, and joined only when the court compelled it to do so. The company specifically "argued that the order violated its users' Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures."
If, as NSA (and Silicon Valley) defenders claim, Prism is nothing more than a harmless little drop-box mechanism for delivering to the government what these companies were already providing, why would Yahoo possibly be in court so vigorously resisting it and arguing that it violates their users' Fourth Amendment rights? Similarly, how could it possibly be said - as US government officials have - that Prism has been instrumental in stopping terrorist plots if it did not enhance the NSA's collection capabilities? The denials from the internet companies make little sense when compared to what we know about the program. At the very least, there is ample reason to demand more disclosure and transparency about exactly what this is and what data-access arrangements they have agreed to.
UPDATE II
My column that is appearing in the Guardian newspaper, on the fallout from the NSA stories, is now posted here.
UPDATE III
Underscoring all of these points, please take two minutes to watch this amazing video, courtesy of EFF, in which the 2006 version of Joe Biden aggressively debates the 2013 version of Barack Obama on whether the US government should be engaged in the bulk collection of American's phone records:
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9160"><span class="small">Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker</span></a>
Friday, 14 June 2013 14:40
Borowitz writes: "Word that the News Corporation chief executive Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from his wife, Wendi Deng, came as a 'total surprise' to longtime Murdoch confidant Satan, the Lord of the Underworld said today."
Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of the entertainment arm of News Corp. (photo: Reuters)
Murdoch Divorce Stuns Satan
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
14 June 13
The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."
ord that the News Corporation chief executive Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from his wife, Wendi Deng, came as a "total surprise" to longtime Murdoch confidant Satan, the Lord of the Underworld said today.
"I am totally blindsided by this," Satan told reporters. "He and I talk every day."
Citing his long history with the media titan, the Hound of Hell said, "We go way back. I gave him the idea for Fox News. I told him to hire Roger Ailes. That's why this is such a shock."
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=5903"><span class="small">Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast</span></a>
Friday, 14 June 2013 14:38
Tomasky writes: "The immigration bill might die in the Senate, as we know, because Marco Rubio ... signed off on the Gang of Eight's bill and then (after various tea party eruptions) decided that the Gang of Eight's bill was ridiculously soft on border security."
The US-Mexico border in Texas. (photo: unknown)
About Border Security
By Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast
14 June 13
he immigration bill might die in the Senate, as we know, because Marco Rubio, a member of the Gang of Eight, signed off on the Gang of Eight's bill and then (after various tea party eruptions) decided that the Gang of Eight's bill was ridiculously soft on border security.
So now Republicans, following Texas Senator Jon Cornyn, are insisting on strict border security measures. But they're not so much strict as they are basically impossible. I understand that there is an extent to which Cornyn is merely representing the views of his constituents, provided you take his constituents to be not all Texans (the vast majority of the Latino ones) but the white conservative ones that are his base. But their demands and expectations aren't reasonable.
I just got wind of this op-ed that ran a while back in the Journal (the Journal?!?) by Edward Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations about the impossibility of total security. He writes:
Does a secure border mean one in which no one is able to cross between the legal entry ports? The most secure border in modern history was probably the Cold War border between East and West Germany. To keep their people from leaving-logistically much easier than keeping others from entering-the East Germans built more than 700 watchtowers, sprinkled more than a million antipersonnel mines, created a deep no-man's zone of barbed wire and electric fencing, and deployed nearly 50 guards per square mile with shoot-to-kill orders. Even so about 1,000 people each year somehow managed to find a way across.
Judging from my email inbox, there are some in the country who would favor a similar approach on the southwest border, but presumably this is not what is meant by the proponents of "border security first."
As he notes, it's a lot easier to keep people from leaving than from coming. I heard on NPR yesterday that the Border Patrol estimates that to meet the terms of Cornyn's amendment, it would have to go up in personnel from the current 20,000 to 60,000. So during sequestration, while national parks and scientific research grants and all kind of things are being cut deeply, we're going to triple the number of border agents? Cornyn's constituents may demand that, but I doubt very much the whole country does.
This means, in other words, that immigration reform that's supported in new polls this week by upwards of 70 percent of the people is being held hostage to the demands of white conservatives from states along the border (and to a lesser extent from everywhere). This is why Rubio is now against his own bill.
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=26275"><span class="small">Falguni A. Sheth, Salon</span></a>
Friday, 14 June 2013 14:36
Sheth writes: "Why should they care if the government has their data? They don't fear becoming innocent targets of persecution."
Sheth: 'A frequent response of those untroubled by the revelations of the NSA program is: 'If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.'' (photo: unknown)
White Suburban Soccer Moms Love NSA Surveillance
By Falguni A. Sheth, Salon
14 June 13
Why should they care if the government has their data? They don't fear becoming innocent targets of persecution
frequent response of those untroubled by the revelations of the NSA program is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." Perhaps we need to translate that phrase, along with the relative colorblindness through which the entire series of revelations has been scrutinized, as: "If your last name isn't Khan, and you have no family in Pakistan/India/Iran, etc., you have nothing to fear."
The revelations of NSA's collection of "metadata" - as cybersecurity expert Susan Landau explained on Democracy Now – is, in fact, even more invasive than actual content collection. She gives an example of how that can be the case: Even if all the NSA does is trace the one or more calls from your home to your doctor on a day when you would normally be at work, followed by one or more calls from your phone that is now located at the doctor's office to your family, that information strongly suggests that the content of the call was bad news.
Similarly then, if the NSA collects metadata of all calls and online traffic in the U.S., they are probably much less interested in a person living in New Paltz, New York, who calls Barcelona eight times a week than they are in biweekly calls from an Indo-Pak restaurant owner in Edison, New Jersey, to a "terrorist-heavy" locale in Pakistan - say, Waziristan. Clearly, in both cases, the pattern reveals the obvious: that both the New York and New Jersey residents have some connection to folks in the receiving nation. But what does it tell the NSA about who they are? To judge from the NSA's datamining project, the intensity of NSA surveillance is heavier in Pakistan than in Europe. Thus, even if the calls from New Paltz are to a terrorist cell in Barcelona, it seems more likely that the calls to Waziristan (say, to the restaurant owner's mother and brother, and his family) will be more suspicious - of course due to the U.S.'s framing of where the War on Terror must be waged. Still, the latter would be, as Marcy Wheeler discusses in a related issue, "false positives."
What is the starting framework that informs the NSA to target your call? That folks with close/frequent connections to Pakistan should have their calls monitored? That these same folks have an increased likelihood of being terrorists/sympathizers? Or, alternately, that if one is an Iranian migrant, from a family that left sometime around the Revolution, yet retains close friends who work for the Iranian state (even as low-level civil servants), then their calls should be the subject of targeting (because as Dianne Feinstein has now announced, Iran is a terrorist state)? Or, as she has also stated, it allows the state to keep records of people who become terrorists later (a la Minority Report)?
I can hear the liberals now: "Of course, there she goes, making it all about race again." Um, no. The NSA is making it about race/religion/ethnicity – as these are uniquely combined in the conceptual category of "Muslim Terrorists." Other branches of the state have long established that terrorism is a unique category that, while defined race-neutrally as having to do with international or domestic political violence targeted against the U.S. government or its citizens, is almost uniquely and singularly applied to Muslims. We've seen evidence of this at other levels of government, as in the case of the NYPD's surveillance of Muslims (in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and internationally). Most recently, we saw this assumption with the immediate rush to assume that a Saudi national that fled the Boston bomb blasts must have been the person who set them - before he was cleared the next day.
If this is the framework that underlies the massive dragnet, then I'm hardly the one making it about race. Meanwhile, as is so often the case, Marcy Wheeler and Rayne (writing at emptywheel.net) have each been presenting some of the most careful and detailed analysis of these programs. While the PRISM program is limited to collecting data from non-U.S. persons - and what that means is still unclear; does U.S. persons include non-citizen residents from India/Pakistan/Iran, etc. residing legally? - as Rayne asks:
Does this mean that all communications between individuals who do not have an Anglo-Saxon name are likely to be sniffed if not collected?
Does this sketchy "(foreign) + (less than 3 hops)" approach executed by humans explain known false-positives? Could the relationships between the false-positives be as tenuous as shopping at the same store? What happens in the case of targets possessing a highly common name like "Ahmed" - the equivalent of Smith in terms of frequency among Arabic surnames - in collection so large it could be called a dragnet?
As others have pointed out, some of these details are hardly new, although the names and scope of the program have changed. As far back as 2005 (yes, under an order signed by then-President Bush), USA Today was reporting details of the NSA's data collection, warrantless wiretapping, and telecom companies turning over data to the feds. It's also true that there was hullaballoo about it (though not as loud in mainstream media) by those who are labeled hardcore "privacy freaks,"- folks like the ACLU, etc. At some level, we may not have heard that much "new" information -but between Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras, Ewen MacAskill, and Glenn Greenwald, we now have unquestionable, tangible, proof that the intelligence dragnet has been extensive and long-standing even after Bush's executive order was rescinded.
Ultimately, the political celebration of NSA's surveillance programs appears to rest on the same old tired flackery parroted by Sen. Lindsay Graham: "I don't care if the NSA collects my data." Of course, Graham doesn't care. Of course, DiFi thinks NSA data collection is crucial to catching terrorists. Of course, white suburban soccer moms are more interested in the intrigue of Snowden's (ex?)girlfriend. Why should they care? They don't worry that they will awake some morning and find themselves on the wrong side of the state - and certainly not because "they're not doing anything wrong," but rather because they're not the wrong color, the wrong religion, the wrong ethnicity, the wrong family. (Remember Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on 16 year old Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki's death? "He should have been born to a far more responsible father"). But of course.
That's why Lindsay Graham, DiFI and the white burbie housewives think that NSA surveillance is a great idea. They're not politically vulnerable (okay, that's an understatement). They're officially in favor of the War on Terror. And certain under this Administration and the previous one, their calls to the doctor and to family (or even Graham's hypothetical call to Waziristan) are not registering as the "suspicious" activity that the NSA is looking for.
As I've said before, this all comes down to a familiar form of American privilege:
"The privilege of not having to know (or know about) foreign nationals or feel particularly obliged to them, or know about the harms done to them, simply because the wars, jingoism, and aggressive foreign policy of the U.S. empire won't affect you."
The other side of the NSA leaks has to do with what we know or can infer about the profiles of people who get top-security clearance. If the NSA's dragnet is designed to look for "suspicious" activity, then besides being directed towards foreigners and foreign threats, it should also be looking for people like Snowden (of course I'm not endorsing this; just considering the logic of the hunt): seeming "one of us" kinda guys: conservative, a believer in American ideals as decided and executed by the U.S. government, a former troop, a "regular guy" with top national security clearance. Who, as it turns out, doesn't like what he is coming to learn in the course of his work, and is beginning to take serious issue with the size and scope of the project. Except that all the national security surveillance in the world didn't catch him before he flew to Hong Kong to meet with reporters and turn over evidence of these secret slides that document an out-of-control surveillance program. Whoops.
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here are two great centers of unaccountable power in the American political-economic system today - places where decisions that significantly affect large numbers of Americans are made in secret, and are unchecked either by effective democratic oversight or by market competition.
haven't been able to write this week here because I've been participating in the debate over the fallout from last week's 
ord that the News Corporation chief executive Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from his wife, Wendi Deng, came as a "total surprise" to longtime Murdoch confidant Satan, the Lord of the Underworld said today.
frequent response of those untroubled by the revelations of the NSA program is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." Perhaps we need to translate that phrase, along with the relative colorblindness through which the entire series of revelations has been scrutinized, as: "If your last name isn't Khan, and you have no family in Pakistan/India/Iran, etc., you have nothing to fear."
