You talk about mil intel. Who is our military after the great purge? Who's side will they be on once they are remade? Why does NSA risk so much for that little 10% when there is so much at stake? We know they don't profile Muslim extremists. Who do you think they might profile? Why is this so important that they need to violate the Constitution? Why don't they just stick with the 90%?
So we do not need to worry where other country's armies are or what they are up to, if, under the assumption that we are going to become a dictatorship. This country took those steps toward dictatorship back in the 70s, so we've functioned just fine, lacking the formalities of a recognized dictatorship. BTW, how do you imagine that four Russian armies found their way into Hungry unnoticed in the 60s bloodily suppressing a nascent revolution?
The assumed purge of the mil seems to based on somewhat shaky grounds - unlike the mass resignation of top brass during Clinton - as FR posters mentioned yesterday.
NSA not profiling Muslim extremists: you gotta ask UBL, and a legion of others now having gone to where ever.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. In case you missed the posts, a host of US citizens have joined AQ and others going overseas to learn and to fight the holy war. They will be returning. The Constitution mandates our government protect us from all enemies externally and internally, which is why the NSA mission is very important, and NOT in violation of the Constitution, except in the most arcane and perplexing intepretations of that document - speaking as one whose phone line was tapped and one who was followed for decades after leaving NSA.
NSA does not stick with the strictly mil 90% simply because other mil activity does not. NSA has been tracking and recording ALL traffic in and out of the US since the late 60s. That's right, your phone calls were recorded way back when, and look what happened to you - nothing.
Admittedly now days, it is far easier to find that needle in a haystack then it was until after the PC revolution in the 80s. And yes, NSA could, if law and congress permitted, go after any one of us personally, but neither law nor congress so permit. However, if the US keeps electing socialists, that will come to pass; millions of shoe sniffers sat out the last Presidential election because Romney was not up to their specs, preferring or giving us HillaryCare, aka ObamaCare, to our private sector healthcare system.
I'd go so far as to say without NSA doing what it does, we'd all be variously either Russian citizens, or praying at our local mosque today, going home with crumbs from trash bins as supper and watching our overlords pass by in shiny limos on dusty roads.
If you aim is to reform NSA, understand the only way to do that is for Congress to make those changes, however, that process would entail a public discussion and thus destroy NSA’s effectiveness.
Shutting off power and water to NSA is childish and vindictive, full of sound and fury, accomplishing nothing, except to hand those enemies externally and internaly a free hand.