Like I’ve said downstairs, Greenwald has succeeded in pretty much poisoning the well on the subject. I’ve tried to talk to wingnut and moonbat alike about this and both are absolutely convinced now that the NSA has been listening in on people’s calls and reading their email without approval or authority. How do you have a serious discussion about the need to reign in our intelligence apparatus when they’re being accused of shit they haven’t done?

I fear the only result of all this is going to be a return to the pre-9/11 mentality of putting up a barbed wire fence between the intelligence agencies and the treating of any investigations as suspect. That instead of finding some measure of balance, we’re going to gut our ability to attain timely intel on threats both foreign and domestic in the name of a thin veneer of “privacy.”