re: #50 Political Atheist

I would not think so. The differences would matter IMO. The NSA has no enforcement authority at all. The answer I would like to hear is that the temporary and extraordinary laws and measures taken after 9/11 would be forced to stop, ending the concerns at that point. But what might his answer really be? I’d love to watch that. Is PRISM a permanent fixture whatever it exactly is at this point? I don’t know. I have never liked FISA either.

Right, the NSA has no enforcement authority but it does work extremely closely with other intelligence agencies, enforcement agencies and the military. You’ll notice on the leaked Verizon order that the original application was submitted by the FBI (DOJ), that the head of the NSA is an Army General, while the NSA itself is an Agency of the DOD. So I’m not sure what point you were making.

While there was some temporary and extraordinary measures both in place after 9/11, the bulk were not. Which makes sense, given that most analysis of the 9/11 attacks highlighted that it was largely intelligence failures that left America largely blind to the potential threat facing it. Rescinding things like the expanded FISA and PATRIOT Act as it stands today would return America to that same blindness.