Congress should indeed provide transparency, accountability and reform of the NSA’s mass domestic surveillance that collects and stores the phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States. There is no reason for the NSA to be conducting surveillance on such a massive basis; it is a symptom of the pervasive refusal to face the reality and magnitude of the jihad threat. Because the NSA cannot admit that there is a particular threat coming from people who would be likely to frequent mosques and Islamic centers, it has to conduct surveillance on virtually everyone.
However, the chief opponents of this effort have been Leftist and Islamic supremacist groups that have opposed every counter-terror measure that has ever been proposed, as well as libertarian groups that persist in the delusion that if American power is removed from Muslim countries, the jihad against the U.S. will cease. These groups, particularly ones like the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), have considerable power and influence in Obama-era Washington, and are likely to be in a position to know whether or not this surveillance is proving to be effective in identifying and stopping jihad plots. If Hamas-linked CAIR is against it, then it is probably effective in countering jihad activity.
That doesn’t change the fact that the Obama Administration has shown itself to be far more concerned with a chimerical terror threat from “right-wing extremists” than with the actual one from Islamic jihadists. The danger therefore is that this NSA surveillance will be used against patriotic Americans who oppose the regime, rather than against those who threaten the safety and security of Americans, and who are working at “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house” — in the words of a captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document outlining its strategic goals for the United States. That is why the NSA should be reined in, but not so as to allow jihadists a free hand. It should be replaced by sane and Constitutional, albeit politically incorrect, surveillance of the sources of the genuine threat.
“Muslims to Join 10/26 ‘Stop Watching Us’ Rally Against NSA Spying,” from Hamas-linked CAIR’s daily mailing, October 21:
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 10/21/2013) — On Saturday, October 26, CAIR will join thousands of civil rights activists participating in the “Stop Watching Us” rally against mass surveillance at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Taking place on the 12th anniversary of the USA PATRIOT Act, the rally demands that Congress provide transparency, accountability and reform of the NSA’s mass domestic surveillance that collects and stores the phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States.
Participants in the October 26 rally will call on Congress to investigate the NSA’s mass surveillance programs, ban blanket surveillance of telephone and Internet activity and pursue accountability for any officials who mislead lawmakers and the American people. A petition with more than 570,000 signatures will also be delivered to Congress….
The rally is supported by the StopWatching.us coalition, a group of more than 100 public advocacy organizations and companies from across the political spectrum. Coalition members include the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Access, ACLU, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Code Pink, Demand Progress, EFF, Fight for the Future, Free Press, FreedomWorks, the Libertarian Party, Mozilla, Public Knowledge, reddit, Restore the Fourth, Students for Liberty, ThoughtWorks, and many more.
The Atlantic Wire has called the StopWatching.us coalition “perhaps the most diverse collection of groups in the modern history of American politics.”…