The NSA: Riddled with American Spies

According to Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency, set up to spy on people, has been spying on people. I can't tell you how shocked I was by this revelation. It wouldn't be quite so bad if  NSA were gathering intelligence about foreigners, the unwashed, so to speak, but they are also spying on well-scrubbed Americans, who have earned special status and should be exempt. What could be more obvious? 

As you know, to spy on Americans, authorities must first get permission from a FISA judge. That would be a safeguard except that FISA judges don't say no. All of this follows the Patriot Act rules, of course, which make intelligence gathering legal. I'm trying to think back--I do remember that when the Patriot Act was passed, some of us opposed it, on the grounds that it shredded the Constitution. The City Attorney agreed.  We asked our city council to live up to their oath, in which each of them had vowed to defend the Constitution against its domestic enemies. We handed them a petition signed by about a sixth of the eligible voters in our town. The council vote to defend the Constitution was 2-2-1. The council dunce who abstained said he did so because we hadn't gathered signatures from 51% of the voters. He wanted to be on the winning side.