21 Dec, 2013
Dave Eggers: US writers must take a stand on NSA surveillance | The Guardian
Yes, it’s been strange to live in the USA in this, the era of the NSA. Not just because of the National Security Agency’s seemingly boundless and ever-more-invasive collection methods, but because, for the most part, Americans have been proceeding as usual. In the wake of the Snowden revelations, there’s been some outrage, and a flurry of lawsuits filed by organisations such as the ACLU, but most polls show about 50% of the population – including a shockingly high percentage of Democrats – find the NSA’s domestic spying programme more or less acceptable.
No doubt many moderate Democrats have been caught in a paralysis of cognitive dissonance. That is, on a gut level, this level of spying seems horrific and unconstitutional, but, then again, would President Obama, himself a constitutional scholar, actually endorse – much less expand – a domestic spying programme unless it were morally acceptable and constitutional? And thus moderates twist themselves into pretzels trying to defend, or at least allow, the NSA’s collections.
via Dave Eggers: US writers must take a stand on NSA surveillance | Books | The Guardian.
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