The headline makes it seem like there was radical change after Snowden. That's fake news. The major movements after Snowden were to quiet public dissent about the disclosures, make legal the former collections policies, and move the authorities under which the programs were authorized, and to restart the programs as soon as there was reduced public attention.

Rather, proposed CIA Director Pompeo wanting increased mass surveillance capability is part and parcel for all intelligence directors, who have consistently (pre- and post- Snowden) called for increased budgets, capabilities and use of mass surveillance to inform propaganda and other intelligence activities.

It makes sense, though. If you've been tasked with a job you want whatever makes your job easier. I would expect him (and anyone else in that position) to want increased powers, especially since when something bad happens people are going to blame him for not detecting and stopping it.

That's not to say we should give them any of those extra tools.

Pompeo demanded death sentence to Snowden.

Yup! Washington absolutely hates Snowden, and especially the fact that he appeals to the majority of people - that in large part some even consider him a hero.

Pompeo is not unusual (perhaps unfortunately) in that regard.

> fact that he appeals to the majority of people

citation needed.

Snowden was leading the public polls for Times Magazin man of the year 2013. They had to put the new pope before him.

And now Assange is leading the public polls for 2016. They will put Trump before him.

It would be newsworthy if he didn't support expanding intelligence community powers...

Considering it was Hillary's core national security position, listed on her website, to do an "intelligence surge" and expanding the collection of data this is exactly what we could have expected from that administration as well.

It'd do the world a service if this was the narrative/reality that was being disseminated by the media rather than pretending it was possible the change would come from within the existing IC community or national security establishment. And as much as Trump has promoted 'draining the swamp' and talked of being anti-establishment, this never seemed at all about to include curtailing the current defense community.

everybody should listen to this podcast of Malcolm Gladwell

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/02-saigon-1965

Why?

all this data collection is useless and doesn't change anything. billions of dollars wasted.

as a former employee of the military industrial complex, i've always wondered how much of the funding went into these categories

   - simple graft
   - strategic investment in technology so that it might be available later if needed
   - strategic investment in people and industries so that they will be on tap later if needed
   - pointless waste
   - things of actual tactical value

seems like it might be a combination?

I would guess that pointless waste makes up the majority. Getting sufficiently competent people in the right positions and the right authority and removing organizational politics is really difficult.

So much legal thinking that my brain is bursting. Government has one legal and one illegal avenue. They can use plausible denial and say that post-Snowden Everything is better.

The legal argument would be that everyone in the world Is spying on us, so we have to keep up with what foreign powers know about the U.S.To be sarcastic, the CIA does not want to buy its intelligence from Great Britain and Russia.