He didn't know?

President Obama has disappointed me in the past - even more now so. His aides say he didn't know we were spying on friendly leaders through the NSA. His aides say he wasn't aware that the web site for the Affordable Care Act wasn't ready for prime time.

Well, what the hell is he doing in D.C. if he isn't monitoring some of the hottest issues in the nation these days?


The New York Times gives its take on the latest NSA controversy:

We are not reassured by the often-heard explanation that everyone spies on everyone else all the time. We are not advocating a return to 1929 when Secretary of State Henry Stimson banned the decryption of diplomatic cables because “gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.” But there has long been an understanding that international spying was done in pursuit of a concrete threat to national security.

That Chancellor Merkel’s cellphone conversations could fall under that umbrella is an outgrowth of the post-9/11 decision by President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that everyone is the enemy, and that anyone’s rights may be degraded in the name of national security. That led to Abu Ghraib, torture at the secret C.I.A. prisons, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, grave harm to international relations, and the dragnet approach to surveillance revealed by the Snowden leaks.