The new report seems to offer little information that was not already known in the unclassified version, but even still there are some interesting parts to it. I suppose when you are battling your own government to find out just what they have done to the laws of the country, that it should come as no surprise that they are less then helpful in any meaningful way.
“Other Intelligence Activities,” well that sounds much nicer than “Welcome to Orwell’s 1984.” The scope of the surveillance program is sort of discussed, with the shocking NON-revelation that the program exceeded simply listening for al-Qaeda and their contacts. All of the other warrantless surveillance is simply listed as “Other intelligence activities.”
But privacy and freedom are sooo over rated, especially if we don’t even realize what is happening. It just seems like everything is fine, and sadly, this ignorance and even denial of reality is what many seem to crave. Though the most worrying signs of the decay of a free society to me was when the revelation of this program first came into the news, when some people justified the warrantless surveillance, actually saying that if we have nothing to hide, then we have nothing to worry about. As long as Bush was in control, I expected the defenders of this program to start goose-stepping around, saying “Ja wohl, mein President/fuhrer.” Well even with Bush out of office, they sort of still keep this mindset, at least on Fox news.
H/T to EFF
