Things you should read about the NSA surveillance program

There's an awful lot of noise out there right now about this whole NSA story. In order to balance that out a bit, here are a few things I suggest that you take the time to read.

From the Director of NSA, a response to the leak about Verizon and a response to the leak about PRISM.

Along the lines of what the Director of NSA said in that first link, here's a former general counsel of the NSA describing how he assumes the surveillance program works.

When President Obama said we need to have a conversation about the balance between security and civil liberties, he was talking about needing to confront what Josh Barro describes in: Massive Government Spying is the Result of a Public Obsessed with Eliminating Terrorism.

Ron Brownstein points to a recent poll where 85 percent of adults surveyed said it was likely that their "communications history, like phone calls, e-mails, and Internet use," was "available for businesses, government, individuals, and other groups to access without your consent." And the poll was taken BEFORE the NSA story broke.

But I saved the best for last. From a REAL investigative reporter who created the most amazing series ever known to television (so relevantly named The Wire) - the one and only David Simon - comes this.

Is it just me or does the entire news media – as well as all the agitators and self-righteous bloviators on both sides of the aisle — not understand even the rudiments of electronic intercepts and the manner in which law enforcement actually uses such intercepts? It would seem so.

Because the national eruption over the rather inevitable and understandable collection of all raw data involving telephonic and internet traffic by Americans would suggest that much of our political commentariat, many of our news gatherers and a lot of average folk are entirely without a clue.

You would think that the government was listening in to the secrets of 200 million Americans from the reaction and the hyperbole being tossed about. And you would think that rather than a legal court order which is an inevitable consequence of legislation that we drafted and passed, something illegal had been discovered to the government’s shame.

Nope. Nothing of the kind. Though apparently, the U.K.’s Guardian, which broke this faux-scandal, is unrelenting in its desire to scale the heights of self-congratulatory hyperbole.

Now go read the whole damn thing from a guy who knows a thing or two about what he's talking about. So great to watch the amazing Simon take down the idiot Greenwald!