Glenn Greenwald ballyhooed the results of a new Pew poll on Monday and while Americans still generally support the National Security Agency’s surveillance operations, they’re increasingly skeptical of the agency to say the least, indicating “a shift” in public opinion, as Greenwald described it. The poll also highlighted several disturbing trends, which I believe have been exacerbated if not directly caused by the shoddy, misleading reporting that’s plagued this story from the beginning.
Before we get into that, the poll showed that 56 percent of Americans believe “federal courts fail to provide adequate limits on the telephone and internet data the government is collecting.” I actually agree here, and I believe the primary legislative task moving forward ought to be reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
Naturally, Greenwald also uses the results of the poll to yet again scold Democrats who support NSA’s efforts. In classic form, Greenwald shamed Obama supporters and party loyalists as hypocrites for having condemned Bush era trespasses but who are currently supporting (or at least not screeching about) what Greenwald considers to be the same, or worse, policies. Among other tsk-tsking, Greenwald wrote:
[S]uch is life in the Age of Obama: one of his most enduring legacies is transforming his party from pretend-opponents of the permanent National Security State into its most enthusiastic supporters.
Greenwald is being shockingly (and probably deliberately) nearsighted. It’s shouldn’t be surprising to anyone with even a passing knowledge of politics that some Democrats distrusted the Bush administration’s approach to counterterrorism, considering how these Democrats had little or nothing in common with the Bush administration in terms of policy positions and values. Likewise, it’s not surprising that these Democrats are more accepting of the Obama administration considering the obvious Venn Diagram overlap between their personal values and positions, and the values and positions of President Obama, Hillary Clinton and the rest. This dynamic is probably why the author of the USA PATRIOT Act, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), is suddenly really, really concerned about overreach in the war on terrorism: because it’s being conducted by an administration he distrusts and general opposes. (Sensenbrenner also supports imprisoning journalists who print national security secrets. Indeed, Greenwald chooses very strange bedfellows.) [READ MORE]