U.S. Congress Is Still Ignorant About NSA Spying

Congress Still Has No Idea How Much The NSA Spies On Americans -- Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic

Adequate oversight is impossible when even diligent members of the Senate Intelligence Committee can't get basic facts about surveillance.

The biggest lie Americans are told about the NSA is that it is subject to "strict oversight." Listening to President Obama, Senator Dianne Feinstein, or most any high-ranking official in the national-security bureaucracy, one gets the impression that the Senate and House intelligence committees are keeping careful tabs on the most technologically empowered spy agency in human history.

The truth is that Congress is alarmingly ignorant about NSA spying. It's not all the national-security state's fault. There are too many issues for every legislator to master them all; surveillance policy is a particularly complicated; and national security is an area many in Congress undermine checks and balances by deferring to the president.

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My Comment: I guess the NSA has now reached the level where it is too big to fail.