Kennedy: NSA program exposed by Snowden was unconstitutional and didn’t work to catch terrorists
Remember when we cared about privacy and the constitution when Edward Snowden showed us back in 2013 the government was warrantlessly spying on millions of Americans in a number of sickening ways, including hoovering up all of our metadata that was stored and misused later?
Some snooty Republicans claimed we were not only asking for it, but this kind of unconstitutional data hoarding was for our own good. Actually the program was curtailed and the NSA has pretty much stopped using it all together about 6 months ago.
The program, part of 2015's USA Freedom Act, expires at the end of this year and I say good riddance. If terrorists need surveilling there are plenty of legal ways to peep into the darkest recesses of their androids, but the government has way too many shady ways to spy on you based on who you know and gossip about. All of that nonsense gets stored on multiple law enforcement and intelligence databases regardless if you've committed a crime or are a threat to national security.
That's the curious thing about our surveillance apparatus: it's got more roaming tentacles than a coked up octopus, and various laws expire at different times and offer cover and opportunity for entities like the FBI to make your life a living hell.
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Last year, with the help of a very persuasive and deceptive Devin Nunes, Congress reauthorized section 702 of FISA that actually expanded multiple agencies' abilities to sweep up innocent Americans full digital communications in pursuit of foreign bad guys, even when people here who should be protected by the 4th amendment weren't talking to the target. And those emails, texts and other digital doo doo are accessible at any time for any real or suspected crime. And then the same lawmakers had the nards to complain the "deep state" was corruptly spying on their guy and his associates with their expanded, dark tools with almost no oversight.
Cry me a river. Whenever the president or congress has the opportunity and authority to reel in these absurdly effective and powerful programs, or at the very least robustly debate the abuses and apply safeguards, they absolutely should. It is no surprise the NSA recently abandoned the metadata collection program, because it's unconstitutional, provides a false sense of safety, is rife with abuse, and doesn't actually work to catch terrorists.