Anger of data mining: Democrats reap what they have sown

First I have to say I am inclined to agree with the Wall Street Journal concerning the merits of the newly exposed data mining efforts of the NSA, which is really not new at all, since we listened to the same howling over the same thing when George W. Bush was in the White House and Dick Cheney was supposedly listening in on all our private conversations:

The outrage this time seems to stem from the fact that the government is widely collecting call records, not merely those associated with a particular suspect or group. But this fear misunderstands how the program works. From what we know, the NSA runs algorithms over the call log database, searching for suspicious patterns over time. The effectiveness of data-mining is inversely proportional to the size of the sample, so the NSA must sweep broadly to learn what is normal and refine the deviations. A non-government analogue might be the credit card flags that freeze payment when, say, a New Yorker goes on a shopping spree in Phoenix. The Washington Post also revealed Thursday that NSA has a parallel metadata program for Internet address packets called Blarney.

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If the NSA's version of a computer science department operates like the rest of FISA, the government is cautious to ensure that its searches are narrowly tailored and specific protocols are reviewed by FISA judges. Mike Rogers, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that the program had helped disrupt a major domestic terror attack in recent years. The critics nonetheless say the NSA program is a violation of privacy, or illegal, or unconstitutional, or all of the above. But nobody's civil liberties are violated by tech companies or banks that constantly run the same kinds of data analysis. We bow to no one in our desire to limit government power, but data-mining is less intrusive on individuals than routine airport security. The data sweep is worth it if it prevents terror attacks that would lead politicians to endorse far greater harm to civil liberties.

I'm not going to be one of those people who was for it before I was against it because the occupant of the White House changed, and yes, I defended this sort of thing vigorously during the Bush years. But if a Democratic administration is going to get raked over the coals for doing something legal and necessary in the service of national security, I have no sympathy for them. In fact, I could not be happier to see them suffering. Because none of this would be happening if they had not turned that which was necessary and legal into a phony scandal for the purpose of weakening Bush. They knew exactly what they were doing at the time. They knew it was dishonest. They knew it was counter to the nation's best interests. They didn't care. They only cared about taking Bush down as many notches as they possibly could. Some of us pointed out at the time that Democrats might one day find themselves back in power, and when they did, they would have to live with the political dynamics they had created. Obama has been pretty shameless about continuing most Bush anti-terror policies - from the continued operation of Gitmo to the data-mining described here, plus a whole lot more drone strikes - and for the most part the media have given him a pass on his hypocrisy because that is just what they do. The problem for Obama now is the new narrative that has him far less trusted because of Benghazi, the IRS, snooping on the media, ObamaCare and so forth. Now, suddenly, it's not so easy to say, "Sure but we're the Obama Administration and you can trust us unlike Bushitler." Once you're using the IRS to harass political opponents, and using hand-picked judges to engage in fishing expeditions through the media's phone records and e-mails, people are not going to be so understanding when you conduct the very same kind of data mining that you condemned when the other party was in the White House. This is why it is exceedingly difficult to govern effectively when you rise to power in the first place via illegitimate means. The phony issue Democrats invented to use against Bush is now coming back to bite them in the #, and the problem is exacerbated by the fact that along the way they have been guilty of so many truly scandalous acts of betrayal against the American people. If they're looking for people to defend their data-mining actions, they might have a hard time considering their own disingenuous use of the very same issue to attack Bush. As they should. They sowed these seeds. Let them live with their own weeds.