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As Glenn stated it didn't cover much new ground for people who've been following this closely (except that I now have even less of a desire to visit Las Vegas than I previously had, which was close to zero as it was, and that if I visit important buildings some person will be tracking my movements with a little black numbered square above my head). But I did come away with one fear that I remember having when this story first broke a year and a half ago, that I don't think has been adequeately covered or discussed, even in blogs.
Beyond the obvious and very serious worries about illegal surveillance, abuse of civil liberties and the use of such spying for political and other non-security purposes, one thing that struck and worries me a lot is that, with so much apparent reliance on these "grand sweeping" technology-based approaches to surveillance that are more drift net-like than targeted, these agencies are possibly going to end up doing a worse, not better job, of detecting and preventing future acts of terrorism. By casting so wide a net, and overrelying on electronic spying and advanced technology and algorithms, they risk falling into the trap of assuming that technology is advanced enough to actually do this sort of thing well, which I believe that it is not, and possibly never will be. And in the meantime, they run the risk of relying less and less on good old fashioned police-type work to detect and stop potential terrorists--i.e. the kind that could have prevented 9/11 and did likely prevent the millenium bombing.
In a sense, these program might not only be breaking the law and trampling on our civil liberties and privacy in a variety of ways, but they might also be making us less safe, not more. I no more trust the people behind these programs to use them lawfully and ethically, than I trust them to use them wisely and effectively. They don't exactly have the greatest track record in my opinion. At the highest levels, they're the same people who are responsible for 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, torture, deficits, etc. So why should we trust them on this? I see no reason to, and every reason not to--i.e. these two reasons I've cited.
