Sen. Patrick Leahy got all up in the National Security Agency’s grill Wednesday, questioning whether its controversial collection of domestic phone data directly led to the apprehension of terrorists.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing he called to discuss surveillance programs disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Leahy “accused Obama administration officials of overstating the success” of the phone data program, according to the New York Times.
Times reporters Charlie Savage and David Sanger write :
[Leahy] said he had been shown a classified list of “terrorist events” detected through surveillance, and it did not show that “dozens or even several terrorist plots” had been thwarted by the domestic program.
“If this program is not effective it has to end. So far, I’m not convinced by what I’ve seen,” Mr. Leahy said, citing the “massive privacy implications” of keeping records of every American’s domestic calls.
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If Richard Nixon had this modern NSA, we’d never have heard of Watergate because nothing as primitive as a burglary would have been necessary. G. Gordon Liddy could have walked into NSA with his White House credential and gotten a list of everything every democrat had written, read, googled or looked at online.
Any attempt to get at the truth would have been veiled in claims of national security and Deep throat would have ended up living in the Moscow airport departure lounge.
Please call this surveillance what it is, unnecessary intrusion into the private lives of Americans. Warrantless unfettered access to private communications. This is not mere controversy.
Sadly, the average American can’t tell you the difference between constitution and constipation.
““If this program is not effective it has to end.†Mr. Leahy said”
It’s too bad that doesn’t go for all programs in Washington or Montpelier….