No NSA Reform, No CIA Reform

The Democrats serving on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Diane Feinstein of California, have released their summary report on CIA torture. What is ahead now that the report is out?

Expect a merry season of verbose handwringing, with endless protestations of (momentary) embarrassment and mellifluous promise of immediate betterment. Even emphatic claims of Never Again!

Just dont believe it. All the statements by ever so embarrassed Senators, in the end, are but a highly ritualized form of appearing apologetic.

The news of the future will report that, despite the most earnest commitments to fundamental change of this critically important issue, nothing will happen. There will also be talk to hold an in-depth national conversation, including unrestrained readiness to look deep into our national soul. But that too is bound to be mostly lip service.

Remember the major embarrassment felt about the Snowden revelations that required urgent changes in the law in order to ensure that such gross betrayals of the rights of American citizens would never ever be repeated?

Or the statements that the NSA needed to be reined in? That it was an agency on autopilot? Well, there were high hopes for legislative reforms initially.

There were a spate of news articles and administration statements promising that real reform would come. Some people honestly thought that, given the immensity of the privacy violations by the NSA, this time things would be different.

In a parliamentary democracy, where majorities in the executive and legislative branches are by definition the same, reforms would likely have happened swiftly.

Not so in the United States, with its traditionally gridlocked domestic politics. There, it is never easy to achieve reforms. Still, after Snowdens revelations, many Democrats as well as some very right-wing Republicans, such as Rep. Sensenbrenner in the U.S. House, were adamant that things could not go on like that.

With such a wide-ranging coalition, along the entire U.S. political spectrum, what could possibly go wrong? A lot, as it turns out, led by a willy-nilly Obama Administration that always pretends to stand for principle before turning meek.

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No NSA Reform, No CIA Reform