Mass surveillance was necessary after 9/11, but not expanding the law to authorize it was a “strategic blunder” that landed the agency in hot water after the Snowden revelations, a former NSA counsel told the agency.
“In the wake of Snowden, our country has lost control of the geopolitical narrative; our companies have lost more than $100 billion in business and counting. Collection has surely suffered,” Joel Brenner told the audience at National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland on Friday.
“The damage from the Snowden leaks to American foreign intelligence operations, to American prestige, and to American power… has unquestionably been vastly greater” than if the White House had amended the law in 2002 to allow bulk collection of US phone records, Brenner said.
The former NSA inspector general and senior counsel at the agency was speaking at an event marking the anniversary of the 1975 Church hearings on surveillance abuses. The hearings resulted in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
http://rinf.com/alt-news/politics/snowden-cost-us-control-of-geopolitical-narrative-former-nsa-official-rt-usa/
Dear Mr. Brenner: Mass surveillance has NEVER been necessary. "Expanding the law" to "authorize" an unconstitutional act would have been an even greater blunder. The only right thing to do would have been to follow the letter and spirit of the US Constitution. Bin Laden did not force you to run amok, but the patsy did give you what you thought was an excuse to do so.
Edward Snowden did not cause any damage. The National Security / Homeland Security State and the thugs who thrive on it caused the damage. They destroyed the undeserved reputation of the US and did the things you mention.
Telling the truth about a monster is more valuable than "$100 billion and counting", but obviously that is something you, the President, his minions, the Congress, and SCOTUS have yet to learn; and I don't think you ever will.
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