Cost-benefit analysis and state secrecy
Foiled plots and bathtub falls
United States | Cost-benefit analysis and state secrecyWithout greater transparency, it is impossible to analyse the true costs and benefits of the NSA's snoopingBy W.W. | HOUSTONANY sane public discussion of the government surveillance brought to light by Edward Snowden's leaks must eventually get around to discussing the costs and benefits of the current practices of America's intelligence agencies. Of course, this discussion is presently impossible, since Americans are not allowed to know what these practices are. We are therefore stuck having to listen to enormously powerful, secretive, professionally dissembling people who are very possibly violating Americans' constitutional rights en masse assure us that they are in fact making James Madison proud, and that, in any case, we really ought to be terribly grateful for their unheralded toil, as the completely untroubling spy-craft about which Americans absolutely cannot know has thwarted multiple terrorist attacks, saving an untold number of lives. I don't want to die. Do you?