The Case For Keeping The NSA Data Mining Program Secret And Running

(Image: Screenshot by ZDNet via The Guardian)

“Top Secret” Should Mean Just That -- Max Boot, Commentary

TOP SECRET//SI//NO FORN

That’s the heading on the first page of the court order obtained the Guardian. Top Secret is one of the highest levels of security classification in the U.S. government; the other initials indicate that this is “signals intelligence,” one of the most closely guarded capabilities of the U.S. intelligence community, and that it should not shown to any foreigners. Ironically and disturbingly, a British newspaper obtained this document.

Now it seems to be open season on the secret intelligence-gathering programs of the U.S. government. Following the Guardian’s exposure of this data-mining program that collects phone logs, the Washington Post has decided to reveal the existence of a program code-named PRISM which allows the National Security Agency to tap “into the central servers of nine leading U.S. U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.”

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My Comment: Max Boot makes a convincing case .... but the focus will not be on the merits or secrecy of the program .... it will be on the politics .... and the ones who will be really outraged will be the President's own liberal base who feel that they have been lied to (which duh!! .... they have been).