PD Editorial: NSA snooping should come as no surprise

Days after a government contractor blew the whistle on a vast snooping operation by the National Security Agency into phone records and Internet use, the public seems no better enlightened about the extent of the spying, the legal justification for the surveillance and the motivations of the whistle-blower.

Edward Snowden, 29, who spilled the information he had about the operation to a British journalist, fled to Hong Kong. He needs to come out of hiding and be willing to be held accountable.

Meanwhile, administration officials and congressional leaders continue to play their own game of hide and seek with the facts. Over the past two days, intelligence officials have defended the program as being necessary for protecting Americans. But when pressed to explain how the program doesn't trample on individual privacy rights, they've been evasive.

Army Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director and head of the U.S. Cyber Command, told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that the sweeping surveillance programs have assisted the NSA in stopping "dozens of terrorist events." But when asked for a more specific number, he said it was classified but hoped to release some figures to the public within the next week or so.

Yet no one should really be shocked by any of this, least of all congressional leaders who have been given ample opportunity to attend classified briefings on these intelligence operations. Some lawmakers argue that they were not fully aware of the scope of the data mining, but theirs may be a willful ignorance.

Even the public shouldn't be surprised by much of this. Some of the central issues here date back to the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001 and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments approved in 2008 that enable wiretapping and other electronic surveillance while leaving authorization to a secret court. The powers are so sweeping that even those who have received FISA demands for records are legally prevented from disclosing anything publicly.

Congress must hold hearings not just on extent of the data mining but the legality of it all. If a FISA court authorized the NSA to tap into all of Verizon phone records, as alleged, it likely far exceeded its legal authority. It would be hard to justify how such a sweeping campaign of domestic surveillance could be related to collecting foreign intelligence.

Meanwhile, a group of senators has introduced legislation to force federal authorities to declassify the rulings of the secret court that authorized this program. Either way, the public needs a clearer picture.

Contrary to the contentions of some, we don't believe that living in a digital age and in a time of terrorism obligates Americans to abandon a presumption of privacy. Nor do we believe that the public needs to give up the idea that government surveillance is being conducted within the confines of the law and with proper oversight. But due to the mischief unleashed by reactionary post-9/11 legislation opening the gates to episodes like this, that trust is taking another beating.