More sucky sloganeering from the Prez:
"It has been effective in disrupting the enemy while safeguarding our civil liberties."
He's talking about giving the NSA the power to do wire-taps on US citizens without a warrant. Now the the first point is debatable. Even if such wire-taps did disrupt the enemy it would probably be classified. And if such wire-taps were completely useless it would certainly be classified. So really we have no way of knowing the effectiveness of the program. Other than the word of the President, but that's not worth as much as it used to be worth.
The second part of the slogan is just wrong. Flat out wrong. This program has removed a fundamental right from Americans. To wire-tap a US citizen, you need a warrant from a judge. That's a pretty basic right. And now it's gone by Presidential decree. No law was passed, no court has ruled. The President just got up one morning, yawned, signed something without reading it and presto! A large hole just got carved out of the US justice system. Now you can say the threat we face is so evil we have to dump our rights only to save ourselves. But don't pretend that everything is A-OK as you start to put Amendments to Constitution into the shredder.
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