Pat
Supporter
There are several issues in play.
First, how does a relatively low level contractor in Snowden's case and an Army Private in Manning's case get inappropriate access to such massive and sensitive data? The internal controls must have holes the size of Montana. Plugging the leaks has to be job one and someone has to be held accountable for the security control failures.
Second, with Mr. Snowden, he went from hero to zero in my book when he chose to visit the Chinese and Russians before his noble information release to the western media. That reeks of traitor and espionage to me not 4th Amendment crusader.
Third, the judge that made the most recent ruling had a damning assessment of the program's effectiveness, his ruling said the government "does not cite a single instance in which analysis of the NSA's bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent attack.''
So what the hell are they dong with this stuff? Why are my calls with my wife in a government data file with no warrant or protections of my privacy?
My fear is that the history of our intelligence agencies is that they are able to amass huge amounts of data with little ability to turn it into timely actionable information. (See Benghazi, Cairo, Syria, Iraq nuclear capability, N. Korea etc.). We've had unpleasant surprises in each instance. It's great that they stopped the Kansas bomber, it's horrible they couldn't stop the Boston Marathon attack.
