BEGIN Short WTF diary.
There are games of musical chairs that you just don't want to win. Defending the super surveillance state is one of those games.
So, when we hear House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi join those circling the wagons to defend secret agencies empowered by secret laws, funded by secret budgets, and overseen by secret courts to the extent that their activities are secret even to elected officials with top secret clearance, that's not good.
Earlier today I wrote about the value of contributing good stories, as if they were stones in the arches that hold up the collective hall of our civilization. Those stories take many forms: good laws are one set. Another are acts of justice that contradict bad laws.
We are seeing ranks form, and form quickly, on the NSA data mining issue: Those who view the secret architecture of the super surveillance state as founded on good laws - that USA PATRIOT, for example, is darn good, does good stuff and it's a darn shame we can't tell you all about it, because secret. And if anyone were to try to tell you about that double secret awesomeness, then they'd be a whistleblower, which is even worse than 9/11 because.. well. We can't tell you why it's worse than 9/11 to drop dimes on the super secrecy. Because if we told you, we'd be charged with spying, and stuff.
But so long as you don't know what's going on... it's all awesome. Super secret awesome. And stuff!
As for why we must have the super surveillance state, the reasons why roll under that core line from the Declaration of Independence, I guess: We hold these truths to be self-evident.
We'd love to tell you what those truths are... but they're classified.