By Eugene Robinson
Washington Post
From the evidence so far, there’s no good reason to let the National Security Agency (NSA) continue its massively intrusive practice of logging our private phone calls. Congress should pull the plug.
I’m not ignoring all the officials, including President Obama, who swear that the electronic snooping has foiled dozens of terrorist plots and saved untold lives. I’m just listening carefully, and what we’re getting is a lot of doublespeak and precious little clarity.
It’s important to keep in mind that Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who absconded to Hong Kong and started blabbing secrets, has thus far disclosed the existence of two separate clandestine programs. One, known internally as PRISM, involves the international harvesting of e-mails and other electronic communications. The other involves the domestic collection of phone call “metadata” – a vast, pointillist record of our contacts and movements.
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