That exchange was really bizarre. Greenwald was incredibly defensive—which I suppose is understandable since he has become very close with Snowden—but it’s probably not smart.

Anyway, he completely dismisses Richard Clarke’s analysis of the fallout from the Snowden leaks as just the propaganda that administrations do and compares the Obama administration to the Nixon administration. I find that very offensive for a number of reasons. President Obama actually asked the Justice Dept. to complete a comprehensive audit of the NSA which was completed in 2010 so not something they did only because of pressure from the Snowden leaks. The Justice Dept. recommended and Obama approved additional oversight by Congress. It is quite rare for the executive to voluntarily give power to the legislative branch without being forced to do so.

I definitely think we could do more to add transparency and oversight to the process. At the same time, most of the leaks have been about our sigint outside of the US and if the alternative to fighting the “war on terror” is to combat terrorism in a manner more like law enforcement then I’m not so sure we want to hinder our sigint outside of the US. It seems to me that this does far more harm than fighting wars which lead to so much suffering by civilians.