Sen. Saxby Chambliss yawns over the
revelation that the National Security Agency has been vacuuming up the calls of Verizon customers in the U.S.
Chambliss on NSA: "We have gathered significant information on bad guys, but only on bad guys over the years"
— @jamiedupree via Janetter
So there are approximately 145 million potential bad guys? That's how many Americans subscribe to Verizon.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, looking out for big telecommunications since at least 2009, when she became chair of the Intelligence Committee is almost worse.
Or as atrios says "It's Totally Not A Big Deal And That's Why It Needs To Be Completely Secret And Free From Meaningful Oversight."
Once again, 145 million Americans are threatening the U.S. at any given moment? That's just among Verizon customers, just the single FISA order that The Guardian obtained. One can surmise that similar court orders exist for AT&T, Sprint, and other services. But, hey, what you don't know won't hurt you, right? And if you haven't done anything wrong, what have you got to worry about?
What you have to worry about is the Constitution, whether you've got any Fourth Amendment protections left. What you have to worry about is that these senators—and the president—are so blithely ignoring the oath they took, and take with each reelection, to defend and protect the Constitution. At least not every senator is taking this with a huge yawn and trying to convince you that there's nothing to see here. Here's Oregon's Jeff Merkley.
"This type of secret bulk data collection is an outrageous breach of Americans' privacy. I have had significant concerns about the intelligence community over-collecting information about Americans’ telephone calls, emails, and other records and that is why I voted against the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act provisions in 2011 and the reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act just six months ago," Merkley said in a statement. "This bulk data collection is being done under interpretations of the law that have been kept secret from the public. Significant FISA court opinions that determine the scope of our laws should be declassified. Can the FBI or the NSA really claim that they need data scooped up on tens of millions of Americans?”
There's no argument that they
do need that data, and even less of an argument that they can efficiently analyze the mountains and mountains of data they receive and effectively protect our national security. It was absurd when it was happening under the Bush administration, and it's no less absurd—or dangerous—under Obama.
