Oversight. We keep demanding this thing. But how exactly does oversight of actions that must be performed in secret even work? Who oversees the overseers?
Let's think about the end game. Suppose the Klayman lawsuit [1] goes all the way to the Supreme Court, and they too find the NSA's metadata collection is a 4th Amendment violation. The NSA is ordered to shut this and similar programs down. They comply. They say "we've complied." But how do we know? How do we know they didn't just spin up new collection programs, out of sight even from the overseers, or perhaps even with the tacit approval of the overseers? How would we find out?
Whistleblowers like Snowden. That's the only protection I see for us here. If the government promises they've complied, but in fact they haven't, they've just doubled down on the damage another revelation to the contrary would create. And doubled the moral imperative that a principled person would feel to leak it.
Let's think about the end game. Suppose the Klayman lawsuit [1] goes all the way to the Supreme Court, and they too find the NSA's metadata collection is a 4th Amendment violation. The NSA is ordered to shut this and similar programs down. They comply. They say "we've complied." But how do we know? How do we know they didn't just spin up new collection programs, out of sight even from the overseers, or perhaps even with the tacit approval of the overseers? How would we find out?
Whistleblowers like Snowden. That's the only protection I see for us here. If the government promises they've complied, but in fact they haven't, they've just doubled down on the damage another revelation to the contrary would create. And doubled the moral imperative that a principled person would feel to leak it.
Oversight = Whistleblowers.
[1] http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/national-security-agen...