Re:Feinstein Publicly Accuses C.I.A. of Spying on Congress
by Spooky23 on Wednesday March 12, 2014 @02:39PM
(#7387407)
The point isn't the Soviet Union was some wonderful thing.
We declared the Russians to be the main enemy during the cold war, and devoted considerable resources to spying on them. We recorded personal phone calls, leveraged any information to get more info, etc. We probably spied on undesirables who were suspected "communists" in the US as well. If you were in the bubble of the "intelligence community", you had no problem with that.
Fast forward to 2014. The enemy isn't a nation but an activity -- "terrorism" (maybe "drugs" as well). Because that activity can happen anywhere, the scope of the "enemy" changed from hostile nations to ANYONE. Someone like Feinstein, who is a patriot, is deeply affected when she realizes that she, too is the enemy.
We declared the Russians to be the main enemy during the cold war, and devoted considerable resources to spying on them. We recorded personal phone calls, leveraged any information to get more info, etc. We probably spied on undesirables who were suspected "communists" in the US as well. If you were in the bubble of the "intelligence community", you had no problem with that.
Fast forward to 2014. The enemy isn't a nation but an activity -- "terrorism" (maybe "drugs" as well). Because that activity can happen anywhere, the scope of the "enemy" changed from hostile nations to ANYONE. Someone like Feinstein, who is a patriot, is deeply affected when she realizes that she, too is the enemy.