Partisan Hypocrisy and NSA Surveillance

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


One of the hot themes of the day is calling out hypocrisy on the NSA spying story: Republicans used to love it when Bush was in charge, but now it’s an assault on our freedoms when Obama is in charge. Democrats are the same in reverse. Dave Weigel writes about this here, Michael Gerson warns his fellow Republicans about it here, and Glenn Greenwald berates Democrats about it here. Plus, of course, we can back this up with hard numbers from that infamous Pew poll earlier this week showing that Republican and Democratic attitudes have swapped sides over the past few years.

As it happens, I think this narrative is being exaggerated a bit as the media enters feeding frenzy stage. Still, there’s plainly something to it. So what about me? Have my views changed? I’d probably have to dig pretty deeply into my archives to know for sure, but for what it’s worth, here’s my position as best as I can reconstruct it:

  • My basic view hasn’t changed: I didn’t like this stuff back in 2005 and I don’t like it now. I doubt very much that the benefit is substantial enough to justify the rather obvious potential for abuse.
  • At the same time, I never viewed NSA’s surveillance programs as self-evidently worthless. My best guess is that they provide genuinely useful information and probably really do help detect/prevent terrorist activity.
  • What’s more, part of my objection to the program in 2005 was that it involved warrantless surveillance. Like it or not, that’s changed. Congress essentially gave its blessing to the program in 2008 and, as Glenn Greenwald confirmed last week, it’s now done under the aegis of warrants lawfully issued to telcos (for the phone record program) and tech companies (for the PRISM program).
  • On a personal note, I’ll confess that it’s hard to sustain a feeling of outrage over this. We had a huge fight about all this stuff five years ago and we lost. Now everyone is supposedly shocked, shocked that NSA is hoovering up huge amounts of private data. Well, of course they are. We lost.
  • But despite my personal fatigue over this—something I won’t pretend to be proud of—I’m glad that Edward Snowden has put these programs back in the spotlight. It gives better folks than me a second bite at the apple of public opinion.

On another note, Glenn Greenwald keeps promising that there are more blockbusters to come that are even more blockbusterish than what he’s revealed so far. Given that, it’s probably wise for everyone to hold off on any final judgments for now. Let’s wait a bit and see what he has for us.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate