: re: N.S.A. Phone Data Collection Could Go On, Even if a Law Expires

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 10:33 PM
Subject: re: N.S.A. Phone Data Collection Could Go On, Even if a Law Expires
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   The three branches of our Federal government have each their own powers which can be neither delegated to, nor usurped by the others. But the Surveillance State is a hydra that can be productively hacked by many swords at once. Thus, even as the Congress has failed to pass the Freedom Act, the POTUS must press forward with prosecution of millions of violations of the FISA statute. Regardless of how Congress has gutted that law in the interim, it was the controlling law when citizens suffered warrantless wiretaps between 2001-2008 and each of those was a crime.  

    These prosecutions can't be enough to secure our privacy; the cost of Liberty is eternal Vigilance. But those who would foist a Police State on us will have suffered a serious setback when they can no longer rely on the cooperation of our own 'phone companies.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/us/politics/nsa-phone-data-collection-could-go-on-even-if-a-law-expires.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0