I read with great dismay the opinion piece by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell supporting pending legislation on the administration’s spying program and retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that carried out the domestic spying.
What Mr. McConnell gave us was more of the same vague fear mongering, without any substantiation that spying on Americans without court order was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks. There has never been one shred of evidence that spying on Americans is the way to protect America, nor is there any evidence that spying on Americans will stop future terrorist attacks.
Indeed, the administration had plenty of warning before the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, but failed to act, undermining the notion that acquiring information invariably leads to proactive deterrence. Intelligence agencies are awash in information from many sources, and can not possibly sort and analyze the data they are currently receiving. Adding to that flood of information with warrantless wiretapping will only exacerbate that problem. Intelligence agencies need better information, not just more of it, and you don’t get that type of good intelligence with blanket wiretapping of US citizens.
Sincerely,
John R. Moffett Ph.D.
Gaithersburg, MD
