The U.S. Congress decision to give broad authority to American intelligence agencies to monitor global communications that transit the U.S. is bad for democracy, violates individual privacy and deals a crushing blow to civil liberties. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic house speaker, is right on target when she says the measure “does violence to the Constitution of the United States.”
The great danger of the bill is that it allows the wiretapping of almost any call, email or other communication going overseas that originates in the U.S. without the democratic oversight of the courts or Congress. Furthermore, the U.S. government can now wiretap conversations between individuals inside the U.S. and correspondents abroad without a search warrant -- an important protection against abuse.
The other dangerous aspect of this new measure is that it gives the U.S. administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with wiretapping operations.
One cannot justify undemocratic measures to fight terrorism -- not only does it undermine the basic tenets of the democracy, the Constitution and basic human rights, it also undermines the very supposed basis of the “war on terror” -- to defend democracy.
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