I watched today as you defended domestic spying on average Americans, imagining that enemies of the United States can only be identified by the broadest possible invasion of domestic privacy. You tried to assuage the public’s emerging outrage (misapplied and outdated as it may be) by arguing domestic surveillance has oversight–a matter that is scarcely credible given the secrecy of the FISA court–and that the NSA’s monitoring of phone calls involves no listening to actual conversations. You sir missed the larger point, a matter I know you know given the quality of your education. Secret courts, secret surveillance, the power to arrest citizens and hold them in indefinite detention without a right to a speedy trial, the argument that you sir, possess the authority to kill American citizens at will–these dynamics, taken together, are the definition of tyranny. You did not campaign on these things but you have adopted them as a matter of “realpolitik” and have shown insufficient will to fight them. This will be your legacy. I see it now. You sir, are no Jack Kennedy. Enemies we shall always have with us, but freedoms are entirely ours to cherish and protect.
Planet of the Blind 