Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Dianne Feinstein is shocked, shocked I tell you, over foreign surveillance

Today Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate's intelligence committee, publically blew a gasket about the NSA spying on foreign leaders. “I am totally opposed to this,” she declares.

What’s troubling is that up to this moment, Feinstein has been one of the Senate’s most vocal supporters of the NSA and its surveillance policies, defending its practices whenever she had a chance. Just a day or two ago, she cut short a public briefing when pressed by a reporter about domestic spying and why it’s not contradicted by the fourth amendment. Today she’s in a snit.

Why is it okay to trash the Constitutional rights of Americans, but not okay to eavesdrop on the Chancellor of Germany? What are we, chopped liver? The senator’s ire seems oddly timed and misplaced to me. Maybe the heat from the public is finally getting to her and she pounced on an opportunity to find fault with the agency she had so vigorously defended.

Does she really believe that the eavesdropping on foreign leaders is the only time the NSA has kept her out of the loop? Could she be that naïve (or frightened)? The NSA has lied to Congress and the president often. Isn’t it about time it faced some sort of punishment? If you or I blatantly and repeatedly lied to Congress, we’d be serving time in prison.

Have you finally found a pair, Dianne or will there be a short-lived brouhaha and then it’s back to business as usual?


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