See, "President Obama’s Dragnet":
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.* Added: See the Daily Caller, however, "New York Times quietly changes published editorial to make it less damning of Obama." (It was a total loss of credibility when the editorial first went up, but the Times is on the right track, bless their little editorial hearts.)
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.
More (9:15pm): At Twitchy, "New York Times revises editorial, implies Obama administration might have some credibility left."
And see the Wall Street Journal for a nice backgrounder, "U.S. Collects Vast Data Trove: NSA Monitoring Includes Three Major Phone Companies, as Well as Online Activity."
I'll have more on this. Some surveillance is necessary. But we're in police state territory at this point, and the hypocrisy is killing me.
