" the questions seem to be:
- Are the two programs revealed by Snowden legal and constitutional?
- Are the programs effective? The government says yes, but most Americans don't trust government. The Obama administration claims National Security Agency spying helped foil a plot in New York, but that claim has been convincingly disputed.
- What else is the government doing to invade our privacy? Until a few days ago, paranoids were people who claimed Washington had cast a vast electronic net over our communications. Who isn't a bit paranoid now?
- Why did the U.S. government for years debunk what they called a myth about the National Security Agency seizing electronic data from millions of Americans?
- Why did the leader of the U.S. intelligence community mislead Congress in March by answering a question about the program in the "least untruthful manner" -- a phrase that would make George Orwell cringe.
- Why do Democratic lawmakers who criticized President Bush for exploiting the post-9/11 Patriot Act now defend President Obama for curbing civil liberties?
- Why do Republicans who defended Bush now chastise Obama for ruthlessly fighting terrorists?
- Rather than fierce oversight, why did the White House and congressional leaders restrict full knowledge of the programs to a few elites, and stage, for the rest of Congress, Potemkin briefings?
- Why does a secret federal court almost always side with the government's requests to seize information.
- Why didn't the president find a way before the leaks to tell the public in general terms what he was doing and why? Obama ran on a pledge of government transparency, opposed Bush-era surveillance tactics, and denounced the "false choice" between security and liberty"
http://mobile.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-i-don-t-care-about-edward-snowden-20130612
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