There is a valuable, vital debate to be had over how much the federal government, in its intelligence programs, ought to be permitted to violate Americans’ privacy in an effort to protect Americans from a dangerous world that includes people who want to kill Americans. There are many different places where the important red lines can be drawn in this debate. It is a debate strewn with well-intentioned, conscientious people who would draw those lines at very different places. Let’s even be generous and stipulate that the question of whether the statutorily provided oversight of these programs is sufficient belongs, as well, to that debate. The terrifying thing is that we are not having that debate. As these documents are the latest things to demonstrate, the various overseers as well as the public do not have access to the information that even the current rules assert they should have. That is how I can state with certainty that we are not having that vital debate: We do not have the means to have that debate with any kind of authority; therefore, no matter how much we discuss these issues, we are not having that debate.
more from Marc Tracy at the New Republic here.