Apparently, Secret Surveillance of Powerful People Is What It Takes to Make Sen. Feinstein Worry
Now that it affects important people, she wants a full surveillance review
Finally Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has been told information that actually made her object to the National Security Agency's massive surveillance superstructure: It's being used against powerful and important people!
Following the news over the weekend that Germany's Angela Merkel and other foreign leaders have been monitored in some unclear capacity by the NSA for years, the defender of all things surveillance has found a line she won't cross. From a statement:
"It is abundantly clear that a total review of all intelligence programs is necessary so that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are fully informed as to what is actually being carried out by the intelligence community.
"Unlike NSA's collection of phone records under a court order, it is clear to me that certain surveillance activities have been in effect for more than a decade and that the Senate Intelligence Committee was not satisfactorily informed. Therefore our oversight needs to be strengthened and increased.
"With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies—including France, Spain, Mexico and Germany—let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed.
Note that the media has also reported the NSA collecting data on thousands of phone calls by foreign citizens in places like Spain and France who aren't powerful world leaders. She doesn't seem to care about those folks, though.
At least her presumption that she and her Senate Intelligence peers are being told everything the NSA is doing has been shattered. You'd think she'd have been more skeptical when she discovered that sometimes even the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court didn't always know what the NSA was up to, despite being the primary oversight for the agency's snooping.
