Isn’t it the same thing?

Reynolds, Althouse, Hindraker, they have no Honor…

But, but, but Althouse isn’t a partisan Republican hack. Just ask her she’ll insist she is independent.

As Orwell once wrote, (more or less) the really depressing thing about modern intellectual life is not that our freedoms are being slowly eroded, but the new found love of totalitarianism and authoritarianism in the ‘intellecual class’. That an allegedly serious guy like Reynolds (who I’m sure is a lovely bloke to his wife and family) can seriously imply that when the President tramples on the constitution the problem is with those who brought this to the public’s attention, we are in serious straits.

Of course, this noble crusader for censorship and untramelled state power calls himself a ‘libertarian’.

Ummm … wouldn’t a bunch of paranoids resorting to assymetric warfare because they feel America is way too powerful just assume that the US is managing to monitor everything they do?

So how does revealing what the US is doing ostensibly to spy on terrorists actually change anything?

Unless the issue is that this is revealing how bankrupt the US strategy is in which case terrorists might be breathing a sigh of relief.

But what does that say about BushCO?

Reynolds’ employer is, with every passing day, more and more transparently exposed as a mere excuse for a football team.

It is highly disturbing to think that silly people like Reynolds and Althouse are teaching America’s next generation of lawyers.

Even if V. Plame did propose her husband for the Niger trip, exactly what is not admirable about volunteering a family member for a thankless, unpaid trip to one of the world’s not-entirely-pleasant spots? A trip for which said family member was eminently, perhaps even uniquely, qualified by training, experience and association?

“That’s because any time the CiC is criticised at the time of war – it’s objectively treasonous. That’s Giving Comfort To The Enemies Of The People, Undermining National Security, Hating Our Freedoms.”

Except when we’re talking about Clinton in the Balkans, of course. Then it’s OK.

Althouse has a third-rate intellect. I read her pablum a few times. She can’t make a supportable argument. In this case, as you point out, she never explains how national security was compromised by the NSA domestic spying leak. Further, she provides no plausible scenarios in which this could be the case. The fact that she doesn’t do either indicates that she doesn’t really have a point to make other than the word “leak” should mean the same in every context. Clearly is does not, a final point that doesn’t bode well for her students. They should be advised to leave now and ask for their tuition back before we get too far into second semester.

Ask yourself this, libbies: Can Valerie Plame cut your taxes? Can Valerie Plame dispense Federal contracts for the flimsiest of security pretexts? Huh? can she? I think you’ll agree the answer is NO! Can George Bush and his policies do these things? You bet yer bippy he can! And if G. Bush were deposed, the books audited, and rational policies put into place, might your taxes get raised, and the largess be restrained? It very well might!

Now do you see why it doesn’t much matter what happens to V Plame and G Bush must be defended at all costs? Simple enlightened self interest, isn’t it, don’t ya’ know.

But you libbies wouldn’t know anything about that, you’re always carping about some national interest. Have you ever gotten a check from the national interest?

I think the answer is clear.

Smart libertarians like Reynolds, Alhouse et al. have long perceived the wisdom of a credit-based system of pooled aggregate totalitarianism similar to the “cap and trade” concept sometimes applied to air pollution.

Thus, in “lean” years, fulminating against all manner of government interference (be it taxation, gun control, multilateral “nation-building”, or corporate regulation) gives the well-prepared schmibertarian a valuable store of accumulated latitude for supporting our great Commander-in-Chief and backing clandestine autocracy at any cost when it becomes necessary to do so…during, say, Wars on Terror.

Let us, therefore, take pains not to confuse the right and proper saving and spending of said Fascism Credits with the reprehensible calumny of Rank Hypocrisy.

That’s because any time the CiC is criticised at the time of war – it’s objectively treasonous. That’s Giving Comfort To The Enemies Of The People, Undermining National Security, Hating Our Freedoms. There’s not a iota of hypocrisy here, dammit. You, stupid liberals, you.

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”
—Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, 1918, in his essay “Lincoln and Free Speech”. (The whole essay is available in his collected works, published in 1926 by Scribner.)

Emphasis added.

Atrios still has the question posted:

“Explain to me…how exactly it damages national security to reveal the fact that we spy on people without secret warrants instead of the fact that we spy on people with secret warrants?”

It’s a damn good question.

Let us, therefore, take pains not to confuse the right and proper saving and spending of said Fascism Credits with the reprehensible calumny of Rank Hypocrisy.

Exactly; my point exactly. Hypocrisy is a wrong charge; it has nothing to do with hypocrisy.

Teonsing and her ilk are criminals defending criminals …. even Al Capone had a lawyer. Why they’d pretend we all dont know the difference between right and wrong is the assumption that will bring them down.

Exposing a crime cannot be an illegal act. The taps are illegal. Impeach them ALL.

Seems to me the simplest answer to those who say it’s okay for the president to have this power is to ask, “Would you be willing for Howard Dean to have this power?” Or Al Gore? Or John Kerry?

If not, you’re in favor of men, not laws, and you’ll get what you deserve if you keep thinking that way. You’ll get someone truly nutsoid, or even empower a governmental agency (think “runaway NSA”) with no controls on it.

A whistle-blower leak trumps a self-serving leak; I’m in favor of leaking illegal acts, not using a leak as an illegal act. Think “Pentagon Papers” (then again, lots of these folks thought Nixon was in the right, too, so there you go).

Ed

I was under the impression that Althouse was another phony “liberal” along the lines of Alan “Thank You, Sir – May I Have Another?” Colmes.

Althouse shows once again that she’s dumber than a box of rocks.

Heh, indeed. And if anyone out there still needs convincing of this, check out her thoughts on contemporary cinema.

“Explain to me…how exactly it damages national security to reveal the fact that we spy on people without secret warrants instead of the fact that we spy on people with secret warrants?”

“It’s a damn good question.”

No, it is not. It is an idiotic question that fails to acknowledge the fundamental protections of the US constitution.

As for one leak versus another surely the content of the leak is key to this? Not that it matters as the whole argument is a sideshow in any event – if everybody gets bogged down in the semantics of what is or is not a leak, it happily avoids having to deal with the content of or motive behind leaks. The Plame disclosure was irrelevant to the wider world, clearly identifying it as politically motivated (even now how many of you could pick her out in a line up if she had changed her hair style?) – it was the motive of disclosure that made it so clearly suspect. In the NSA case it was just another nail in the coffin of American freedom.

I think I should have read the original Atrios post as it is out of context and re-reading it, it may well be a rebuttal of an argument against the leak. Ooops.

Ann is a hoot and a member of the “I am the true liberal!” false karass that contains Roger L Simon, Totten, Jarvis, Reynolds, and most of the winguts.

Little did you know that because your friend called you two years ago, and you called your mom six months ago, all calls to her house are now being recorded. – Jake McGuire

But if said notorious buddy in Germany were really so notorious presumably his calls would already be under major wiretaps and this sort of thing would get picked up anyway — even without the whole easy for the gummint FISA system, this sort of warrant could obtain. And any terrorist presumably would know or at least guess this anyway. So I fail to see the difference — if anything, the real problem is that if you know every call is potentially monitored, you might figure out that the gummint might not have enough time to really monitor your call (which is why the righty-tighties may be right about this leak damaging national security … and why fishing expeditions such as this one make for bad security keeping in the first place).

OTOH, if the buddy in Germany is not that notorious, presumably this sort of listening could catch something that you couldn’t even catch with a FISA warrant. But then again, casting such a wide net is gonna give you so many false positives, you would still miss the needle of the call from the notorious buddy in Germany in the midst of all the hay generated in the fishing expedition.

*

In general, one disturbing “anti-scientific” trend in present society as exemplified by the Bush admin is the undermining of the concept of “peer review”. It used to be considered a good idea to have someone check your work. Now Bush & CO are claiming they can do a better job keeping us safe precisely by acting in a way that their work can not be checked? That people should agree that oversight does more harm than good is an ill omen — not just in terms of Bush & CO being more likely to make mistakes ’cause no-one is checking their work, but even more broadly in terms of undermining cultural acceptance of the scientific method which has given us all the technological goodies that really form a key basis of modern civilization’s creature comforts. Are we, as Margaret Mead feared, heading toward a new dark ages?

I found it funny (funny odd, not funny ha-ha) that merely revealing the existance of a security process of the Bush administration was met with a fulisade of outrage. However, the HSA block grants have to have public, detailed, spending plans associated in the grant proposals.
That won’t tip a few hands in our cities, will it?

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. Your notorious buddy in Germany pays (or has a flunky buy) a prepaid cell phone. No one knows it’s him. He calls your mom. What’s different under the new regime is that the NSA has been listening to all of your mom’s phone calls, because your German buddy called you back in the day, and you call your mom on occasion.

Administration distractions aside, it looks like the problem was not so much that the FISA court was taking too long to get back, but that they were saying No when they did, or at least making the government change their requests, perhaps because there was no probable cause to believe that any random call to your mom was a matter of national security.

What’s different under the new regime is that the NSA has been listening to all of your mom’s phone calls, because your German buddy called you back in the day, and you call your mom on occasion.

I fear Kevin Bacon’s phone has been tapped. Poor bastard.

Maybe I can clear this up:

1) Somebody who exposes somebody umpteen pay grades above them: whistleblower

2) Somebody who exposes somebody umpteem pay grades below them: not a whistleblower.

As Ted said, if the WH had a problem with Ms. Plame, well, the CIA is part of the executive branch, no? The WH is at the top of that particular pyramid, no? So why the hell do they need to go cry on Bob Novak’s shoulder? Fire her and anybody that looks like her, if you think she sucks.

But who exactly is in a position to walk into the Oval Office and say “Hey, I’m a guy down in C-7 and I don’t think you are following the constition!!” More to the point, if they don’t need the job it still doesn’t fix the perceived problem.

What is exactly so hard about this?

“… you libbies wouldn’t know anything about that, you’re always carping about some national interest. Have you ever gotten a check from the national interest?

I think the answer is clear.” -mooser

Yes mooser, the answer is clear. Let’s have a look. By defending the national interest, we do get something – Our Great Nation. (strange that you didn’t see that).

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. Your notorious buddy in Germany pays (or has a flunky buy) a prepaid cell phone. No one knows it’s him. He calls your mom. What’s different under the new regime is that the NSA has been listening to all of your mom’s phone calls, because your German buddy called you back in the day, and you call your mom on occasion. – jack mcguire

If they are doing that — that’s a waste of time. How does that help the war on terror or whatever we’re supposed to call it nowadays.

As has been pointed out before … insisting on warrants isn’t only about preventing abuse of power. One of the key principles of the scientific mindset that has served civilization so well as that everybody’s work should be checked by an outside reviewer to make sure they are on the right track. Bush & CO’s insistence on absolutely no checks on their work either indicates they are fundamentally against the scientific mindset or they simply don’t care whether or not they are actually on the right track.

Both possibilities are frightening and both may very well be true.

Incidentally, the things you find on Kos. or

Why This Matters.

‘”When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief,” the Boston Globe reports.

“After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ”signing statement’ — an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law — declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions.” (from Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire: originally the Boston Globe).

In other words, the great victory we all felt we had won when torture (!) was again declared illegal counted for nothing, because Bush believes that he is above the law.

Can Israeli style assassinations sorry mistaken killings of terrorist suspects be far behind?

And what will the increasingly risible ‘libertarians’ have to say about all this?

Sorry to be tedious but I hunted down the actual Boston Globe article. The whole thing is worth reading, but this bit is particularly interesting.

‘Elisa Massimino, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, called Bush’s signing statement an ”in-your-face affront” to both McCain and to Congress.

”The basic civics lesson that there are three co-equal branches of government that provide checks and balances on each other is being fundamentally rejected by this executive branch,” she said.

”Congress is trying to flex its muscle to provide those checks [on detainee abuse], and it’s being told through the signing statement that it’s impotent. It’s quite a radical view.‘

In other words, when all the fine words are done away with, Bush is attempting to create something that is without parallel in the West since ’45: an elected dictator. He is also trying to fundamentally rewrite the rule book on democratic practice in the US. Nixon didn’t go nearly this far. Not even close.

the damage to national security is obvious.

OBL had been using a phone that was only secure against warranted secret wiretaps, but after the leak he switched to a phone that’s secure against illegal secret wiretaps as well.

In the short term, terrorist groups now know that they can stand a significantly better chance of hiding their communications from the NSA by chosing communications systems that don’t happen to route through the U.S.

Well, that’s total bullshit for starters. ECHELON has existed for a while, and that covers the Big World Outside The US, meaning that stuff routed elsewhere goes to the NSA in Menwith Hill or Shoal Bay or Misawa, without any worry about FISA or Fourth Amendment.

US-HELON was just a way to domesticise that practice.

The most obvious answer is usually the right one. Wilson’s wife was mentioned to drive home the point that Wilson was a joke. And the leaker probably had no idea she was considered covert and it was probably meant to be off the record, simply to let the person no that there was no story in Wilson.

“Hmmm, I guess we better get all of congress together so we can get rid of that FISA law and start our secret important surveillance.”

Aaron’s snark would be better taken if he knew what the hell he was talking about.

And I see that aaron also understands that every successful counterterrorism operation that the US conducts is ILLEGAL — because if it was legal, then the terrorists would know about it, and then it couldn’t work then right?

Aaron opposes the Patriot Act, not because he cares about civil liberties, but because he realizes that there is no way to protect America through “laws” and “rules.” Why is there even a discussion of the Patriot Act — we cannot let our enemies see what we do.

Aaron opposes the separation of powers, because common sense dictates that a house divided cannot stand. Disagreement about what the government should do paralyzes America and exposes us to terrorists flying planes into buildings.

Also, police transparency is generally a bad idea, and only serves to strengthen criminals by giving them insight into how the police work. It is best for the police to operate without supervision. They can be trusted to focus on fighting crime, and if you’re not a criminal, you shouldn’t worry.

Please share more nuggets of wisdom, Adam.

This isn’t my day for posting correct links to CT, somehow. Let’s try again. That is an urban legend. It, as we say, turns out not to be true. (But this only came out on December 22nd, so it’s understandable that you and most people haven’t yet heard.)

One think that I don’t think has been harped on nearly as much as Reynolds and Althouse deserve – they’ve spent the last two years carrying the administration’s water on the Plame affair. IIRC, Glenn ‘Allegedly a Law Professor’ Reynolds claimed that the Plame affair was too complicated to figure out. Not a bad thing for a non-egotistical lawyer to say, but Glenn’s fame comes from being an egotistical jerk with a quick opinion on anything.

Well, having read all 78 comments, I could understand that Prof. Althouse would decline to respond in THIS forum. What is the point of all the “dumb as rocks,” “chimperor” etc. rhetoric except to degrade the discussion to the point that only the most juvenile remain? Let me remind you all that most people judge a point of view by its adherents, and that Prof. Althouse’s rhetorical quality far outshines that of the commentators here.

Also, sexually tinged insults, like no. 23, are especially offensive to grown-up men and women.

Ooooh, sexually tinged insults!

Wait… “she’ll be mother”? At a child’s tea party?

You’ve got to be kidding me.

And forget about the complete disregard for logical argument. The original post makes a sustained argument against points that don’t even merit such a response, and you choose to focus on a single “Chimperor” comment, taking that as an excuse for not having to deal with logic at all.

As far as the comments about Althouse being as dumb as rocks, I am sorry to say that she has advanced numerous arguments that make that a quite reasonable thing to say. After hearing the likes of “Bob Dylan didn’t mix art with politics, which makes him right-wing” and “Lewis Libby is an unfairly prosecuted whisteblower,” I’m not sure what else there is to say.

Of course you seem to share ideological sympathies with Althouse, and I can see why you would want to grab onto the supposed rudeness of her critics. When there are no logical arguments to defend, best to take pride in being polite and rhetorically sound. Hold your head up high.

Gary, in re 74 and 75, I think it was a joke.

” Oh no, it was absolutely crucial that the fact that HIS WIFE SUGGESTED HIM FOR THE JOB OH SNAP HE’S SUCH A LOSER be revealed.”

This is why neocons outed Wilson. He was a merit selection. Can’t have the most qualified person making field assessments. The truth might get out.

As for Glenn. Maybe he can just post his name, phone number, social security number, and other personal information for all to see. Including detailed medical information because women should have no right to privacy.

Why should he?

just on the topic of “Chimperor”, etc; I have made this point elsewhere on a few occasions, but the guy actually does have a face which resembles that of a monkey. Given that he’s president of the USA and he looks like a monkey, I would far rather live in a society where this fact was regularly mentioned and mocked than one in which everyone felt unable to do so.

Tom Tomorrow…

Here’s a tasty treat. Yesterday after reading the above I took a trip over to Ann’s site. While there I was compelled to leave a comment, something along the lines that I could imagine all sorts of harm that the Plame leak did, but for the life of me I could not think of one harmful thing that would come about by leaking the information that the POTUS had allowed American citizens to be spied on sans warrants.

For example, in Plame’s case, there is the exposure of foreign agents she might have worked with, the exposure of her employer as a CIA front, blowing the cover of American agents overseas that she worked with…I mean, it is not very hard to come up with a short list. With a bit of research I am sure that I could come up with more. Now I have no proof that any of this was actually harmful but at least I could come up a list. I challenged Ann to come up with a similar list or admit she was talking out her ass once again.

In a stunning act of intellectual bravery Ann deleted my comment. And I don’t think the reason was that I used the word ass. :)

Now don’t get me wrong, she can delete any damn thing she wants, it’s her backyard. Still one can’t help but admire the decisive way that Ann fled the question. The truth must really really hurt!

The whole point of all this is that the fact that the administration refuses to obtain court warrants does not qualify as a “discussion of the limits”; underlying assumption here being that the court would never deny any reasonable request for a wiretap.

That may be the overall point of the whole scandal, but I was just adressing Ted’s claim that there was no possible harm involved in this issue becoming a big scandal.

I think there is definitely potential harm, the political question is whose fault that harm is, the leaker or the lawbreaker.

But, I come from a country that has a government assassin from the secret police as it’s national film hero, so what do I know?

soru

“Rep. Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Dec. 21:

As the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, I have been briefed since 2003 on a highly classified NSA foreign collection program that targeted Al Qaeda. I believe the program is essential to US national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.”

Those damn democrats-always suppressing our democratic rights to turn Bush into an extra-legal emperor!!!!

That motivation is strong enough that the UK does not permit any kind of phone tap evidence to be used in court, precisely because any open legal discussion of the limits of such evidence would, in the judgement of those who know most about how it works, have a greater cost than the benifits of locking up a few extra bad guys.

While I have you on the line, is that the real reason that the CPS declined to proceed with the prosecution of Katherine Gun?

CPS said they dropped it because they had little expectation of a conviction. Anit-war groups claimed it was because a prosecution would have had to go into the legality of the invasion of Iraq. But is it possible that CPS just didn’t want to have to go into the limits of its wiretap capability?

And it is too on topic because it’s about whistleblowers.

The NSA’s spying on citizens without a warrent is an affront to all Americans. By doing this the (current) president is saying that the Constitution is no longer a viable document. He is saying that Americans must accept “Safty” instead of “Liberty.” and this attitude creates a tyranny beyond the threat of any terror.

It is the Constitution that gives this county it’s greatness and uniqueness among other nations, to give all that up so that Americans can “feel” safe from terror is the greatest mistake we could ever make. Our government should know better.

I think we have (or should have) gone way beyond the issue of whether or not national security was endangered by the whistleblowers. The 2 remaining questions are, surely:

1: Was this action (i.e. the wiretapping) legal and if not

2: Is this grounds for impeachment?

Some interesting and some comments that seem shallow For instance,I don’t know who #37 is offering to blow.If it’s Cheney(see Wonkette),thatd be quite a challenge.Just had to say it.
I don’t believe the whistleblower statute is valid in classified documents.Could someone who has had a security clearance please comment.
Brendan raises the interesting qquestion of grounds for impeachment.Has any one serious (ie not someone like John Conyers proposed it .)I think that would be the route to take.

It’s real simple. You can’t get a warrant to listen to phone calls if you don’t have probable cause to believe that there’s going to be something of interest in them. For instance, you can’t legally tap the phones of everyone someone you think might be a terrorist ever talked to. The FISA court won’t let you, and rightly so. Bush told the NSA to do it anyway.

Well, Jake, first of all this is inconsistent with your previous comments where you were saying that it’s not only “everyone someone you think might be a terrorist ever talked to“, but their mothers too.

Second, what’s your evidence that FISA wouldn’t let you tap phones of “everyone someone you think might be a terrorist ever talked to“? I think it certainly would. And I’m sure the FISA would even allow you to tap their mothers’ phones — if you can explain why it makes sense.

And finally, I’ve never heard so far the Bushies defending this thing by arguing that they were unable to get a court order. Mr. Bush said: “in other words, the enemy is calling somebody and we want to know who they’re calling and why“. Clearly in this case there wouldn’t be any problem in obtaining a court order. So, again, he either lying or arrogantly ignore the law or both.

“So, again, he either lying or arrogantly ignore the law or both.”

Blue in the face.

Theora: And for the billionth time, no one has any real response to the question of how our national security is endangered by learning that our government illegally spies on its citizens [i]without[/i] a secret warrant as opposed to legally [i]with[/i] a secret warrant.”

Oh how clever, to repeat something you saw on Atrios.

Problem is, neither you nor Atrios show any sign of understanding the issue. The harm is not merely that the public knows that the government was monitoring without a warrant. The harm is in the deductions that one can make from that fact. One asks oneself (if one is intelligent, that is), “WHY is the government monitoring without a warrant? Perhaps that might be because they are doing some sort of data collection that wouldn’t justify a warrant in any particular case.” And then, with the further information that inevitably has come out, one finds that this is indeed the case. And THIS is what gives potential terrorists the knowledge that 1) they shouldn’t call certain numbers in a particular pattern; 2) they should be sure to route their communications through off-shore switches, or stop using phones altogether; etc., etc., etc.

None of that is to say that the monitoring is a good thing. Let me repeat for the stupid: None of that is to say that the monitoring is a good thing. It’s probably illegal, as far as I can tell. But at the same time, publicly revealing the nature of the monitoring IS obviously a security risk. That’s not even a hard question.

“Well, Gary, once again: if this is true, if that’s the argument, why aren’t the administration officials making it.”

Because they are schmuks who should be impeached.

Read harder.

functional, are you ill? Take some fluids.

The simplest deduction following from knowing that the Bush administration is monitoring without warrants is that they are a damn pack of arrogant fools. They could use the existing law’s exemptions or go get a better law. Anyhoo, the “arrogant fools” explanation is most likely to have been right.

As for why you think terrorists would not have been sneaky as possible with telecomminications before the NYT story… well, that might have something to do with you being a cretin.

Obviously, my comments are directed at Ted as well, whose original post above includes this line: “I don’t understand how it would help a terrorist cell to know that their communications were subject to monitoring without warrants, versus with warrants.”

Not the point at all. What helps a terrorist cell is knowing that particular types of communications are being monitored in particular ways. The warrant/no-warrant question is a red herring.

That shouldn’t be so hard to understand.

Functional,
Here’s an easier way to explain the problem to the likes of Theora Jones: The recent revelation is this: “The NSA has been doing {X} without a warrant.” Theora deftly points out that it doesn’t harm national security for terrorists to learn the “without a warrant” part of that sentence. No shit, Sherlock.

But if you exercise your short-term memory, you might recall the earlier bit of that sentence: “The NSA has been doing {X}.” THAT leaked portion of the sentence is what can harm national security.

But before the recent revelation the common perception was: “The NSA has been doing {X} WITH a warrant.” Thus the only new piece of info here is “without a warrant”; “the NSA has been doing {X}” part has not changed – thus nothing of value has been revealed to the bad guy to prompt him to change his behavior.

Correct?

Functional,
could you post a link and, perhaps, a summary of what these interesting details are? My impression is that apart from it being called ‘secret NSA program’ there’s nothing new there other than warantless wiretaps.

And if you think that data-mining and technics like scanning for key-words in phone communications is something new – I think it was described in some TV series I watched a couple of years ago.

Abb1:

Does your version of the Internet not come with Google? Anyway, here’s one post that you might check out. Keep in mind that someone who gains his knowledge from TV is hardly in a position to analyze any level of harm or non-harm to national security.