J.D. Tuccille on Obama’s Weak ‘Reform’ of the Surveillance State

It’s
never a promising sign when a politician compares presumptuous
government intrusions to the risks taken by freedom fighters who
put their asses on the line to fight intrusive government policies.
Yet that’s how President Obama launched his speech last Friday,
suggesting that the National Security Agency’s surveillance of
communications in the United States and around the world is nothing
but a continuation of the Sons of Liberty’s lookout for redcoats.
So, the NSA’s secretive reports to administration officials are the
equivalent of Paul Revere’s midnight ride? But Obama didn’t
go quite that far. He didn’t go that far,
either, writes J.D. Tuccille, in his lukewarm embrace—well, let’s
call it a moist, limp handshake—of the very modest reforms to NSA
snooping practices recommended by his hand-picked review group.

View this article.