Jacob Sullum on Obama’s Surveillance Epiphany

Last June, after news reports
revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) was
surreptitiously collecting everyone’s telephone records, President
Obama called this massive dragnet a “modest encroachment”
that “the American people should feel comfortable about.” Last
Friday he portrayed the program as a significant threat
to privacy.

Which is it? Evidently, writes Jacob Sullum, the answer depends
on the latest polls, which find that the American people are not as
comfortable with the NSA’s snooping as Obama said they should be.
Sullum says the president’s obvious lack of conviction about the
threat posed by mass surveillance makes it hard to believe he is
serious about addressing it.

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