Tribune Editorial: Lawsuit should get to the truth about NSA spying in Utah – Salt Lake Tribune

Drake continued, "The new mantra to intercepting intelligence was 'just get it' regardless of the law."

Shameful.

It is becoming clear that such a lack of candor from our government officials has become a feature of our post-9/11 surveillance state, and not a bug. Perhaps the infringements of our freedoms necessitate an end to the entire post-9/11 project. But with the billion dollar Utah Data Center sitting right-smack in Salt Lake County, it's doubtful we could successfully kill the beast that is the surveillance industry.

Perhaps we, too, like Jonathan Swift, need "A Modest Proposal." It would be a shame to let the texts, emails, phone records and Google searches of Utah's most popular citizens go to waste. We paid for these records, let's make them public.

Just think, no one would need private investigators to catch husbands texting old girlfriends. You could easily recover your mom's old meatloaf recipe she emailed years ago.

And all those public officials who, when under investigation, manage to lose thousands of emails, as one-time IRS official Lois Lerner did. And former Utah Attorney General John Swallow, who just happened to leave his tablets on airplanes. Call up the NSA. Problem solved!

Think of the money newspapers and community watchdogs would save in GRAMA / FOIA requests. And how would life be different if police, prosecutors, legislators and other government officials knew their communications would be discoverable?

Deception begets deception, poison begets poison. The Fourth Amendment means what it says, and the government should not have power to spy on Americans without a warrant. In this current case, U.S. Department of Justice officials have until March to disclose relevant documents. Let's hope they can do so honestly.

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Tribune Editorial: Lawsuit should get to the truth about NSA spying in Utah - Salt Lake Tribune