Published June 6, 2013. The New York Times:
"Within hours of the disclosure that
federal authorities routinely collect data on phone calls Americans make,
regardless of whether they have any bearing on a counterterrorism
investigation, the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered
every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his
powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with
them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you
about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.
"Those reassurances have never been
persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone
records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism —
especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and
accountability.
"The administration has now lost all
credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive
branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason
we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it,
was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance
powers."
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