Remember a year ago when the CIA was shown to have spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee? Senator Dianne Feinstein, a vocal apologist for NSA snooping, was beside herself demanding investigations into the nation-threatening lawlessness on the part of the snoopers. Sadly, her indignation was short lived and she’s back to telling us that NSA surveillance is no big deal and for our own good.
Now we’re into round two, this time with Representative Peter Hoekstra, a very reliable and outspoken supporter of the NSA’s spying on American citizens, demanding the investigation and prosecution of the NSA for the effrontery of spying on Congress instead of just ordinary citizens. Don’t they know who he is?
Of course, we here at Irreal welcome Representative Hoekstra’s come-to-Jesus revelation; we just wish it would last more than a couple of weeks and translate into some concrete action. In the mean time, we’re enjoying our moment of schadenfreude and the spectacle of seeing Hoekstra’s own ox being gored.
Follow the link above and read Glenn Greenwald’s righteous takedown of the political elite who believe that surveillance is just fine for us ordinary folks but a constitutional travesty when applied to them. As much as we might hope that this will result in some legislation reining in our runaway intelligence community, the more likely outcome is that we’ll get a law making it illegal to spy on Congress.