| Again, it can not be known to the general public that the NSA is in fact complying with all applicable laws because the legal justification is--in fact--classified. However, it is known thanks to an approved declassified statement that on at least one occasion, the NSA did violate the 4th Amendment[1]. This is taken from the legal director of Senator Ron Wyden as part of an official statement: "It is also true that on at least one occasion the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held that some collection carried out pursuant to section 702 minimization procedures used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment."[2] Again, no one is saying that the government isn't claiming legal authority. But what you--we--need to understand and accept is that no matter what actions the government takes, they will always claim legal authority. If they were to take unconstitutional or otherwise illegal actions against U.S. citizens--even with benevolent intent (e.g. protection and safety)--they must claim the legal authority to do so. The problem at hand is that neither the actions taken nor the legal justification of those actions are known to the general public and thus we have absolutely no avenue to check the government and ensure that their claims of legal authority are accurate. It's important to now note that by definition there is no enemy of any nation which presents a greater threat to the sovereignty of that nation than a corruption of that sovereignty itself--be it political corruption, abuse, or tyranny. Therefore, it is an a priori requirement to national security for the public to know that the actions and justifications of the government are legal--and that the public views their legality as justified. And this can and should be done without releasing specific details which would result in an unreasonable threat to national security. We're not talking about releasing the source code here; we're talking about proving to the public that they approve of the both the actions and the justification of those actions. It may be inconvenient to be restrained by the constitution, but violation of it--even if only in spirit--is tyranny as the founders defined it. Finally, as an aside to your point about aircraft carriers and missile defense shields, those examples are neither questionably unconstitutional nor are they equivalent. If a aircraft carrier or a missile defense shield become compromised, there will be destruction; but manageable, well-defined, destruction. We can measure and contain that sort of destruction. It's impossible to imagine or measure the amount of destruction caused by the release of in-depth intelligence data of many, most, or all citizens of the world. |