Defending NSA spying puts GOP establishment on wrong side of debate
"Certainly, Obama doesn't benefit from the NSA scandal, especially coming after the other scandals involving Benghazi and the IRS targeting conservatives and libertarians for their political and religious beliefs. But there is one group that has been seriously weakened by the revelations about the NSA:
The Republicans.
Not all Republicans, but the establishment GOP, the big-government neoconservative wing that has run the party for decades, framing the debate, playing our fear of terrorism like a musical instrument as its pushes war as policy.
Think of a grinning Karl Rove with Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham on his lap. Those guys. They're the ones hurting.
Because what NSA leaker Edward Snowden has triggered is a debate — I prefer the words "political cage match to the death" — between the neoconservatives on one side and the libertarians and conservatives of the tea party on the other.
The GOP establishment pushed through the Patriot Act under President George W. Bush, using the threat of terror to grow the federal security state into what it's become. And now the establishment is denouncing Snowden as a traitor.
That doesn't sit well with the Republican base."
* The voices of common Washington consensus, meaning the establishment bipartisan political class, keeps stressing that what the NSA is doing is legal. This argument misses the political point, but it fills airtime.
"Yes, it is legal," said Napolitano of the NSA spying. "Yes, it is legal. And it was enacted by the Congress, but it is profoundly unconstitutional.
"These laws undermine the very reason the Constitution was written, one of which is to guarantee the freedom to exercise your natural rights, among which is the right to be left alone. The laws directly contradict the core American value, the core value that Jefferson wrote in the declaration, that our rights come from our humanity and not the government and so they can't be taken away by a vote of the government."
More: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0612-20130612,0,5332474.column
"They can capture emails of your friends, your children, your spouse, your local librarian and anybody," Napolitano said. "What kind of society wants the government peering over its shoulder all the time? That's East Germany and Stalin Russia. That's not the United States of America."
Damn right.
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The ones who benefit from that will be the likes of Rand Paul. Just my opinion. 
