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" Almost all of the extra-constitutional atrocities attributed to the &amp;quot;war&amp;quot; on terror have their philosophical -- and, in many cases, their literal -- roots in the equally futile &amp;quot;war&amp;quot; on drugs. It was there where the Fourth and Fifth Amendments first took a beating similar to the one that Edward Snowden revealed they are currently enduring on the part of the NSA. In fact, the &amp;quot;war&amp;quot; on drugs was more insidious in that the government didn&amp;#039;t even have to abridge our rights directly; it simply subcontracted the job to every other institution -- the workplace, the school -- with sway over our lives. (Consider how unremarkable drug-testing without probable cause -- which is essentially both an unwarranted search and forcible testimony that might be incriminating -- has become. Not even the Major League Baseball Players Association, the most powerful union in the country, can stand up against it any more.) The &amp;quot;war&amp;quot; on drugs so acclimated us to the piecemeal surrender of our civil liberties that, when the &amp;quot;war&amp;quot; on terror got thrust upon us, the people seeking to curtail them further didn&amp;#039;t have to work very hard to do it. Hence, the NSA. Hence, Edward Snowden, guest of the Kremlin. Which is why the latest revelations of government spying come as no surprise. And it comes as no more of a surprise to discover that, in government, secrecy is the motherland of all lies. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to &amp;quot;recreate&amp;quot; the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant&amp;#039;s Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don&amp;#039;t know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses. Again, I don&amp;#039;t recall any &amp;quot;national debate&amp;quot; about whether or not this program, and the crimes in office on which it apparently depends, was a good idea in a self-governing democracy. The only reason we&amp;#039;re having one now is that Edward Snowden, guest of the Kremlin, forced it on a country that&amp;#039;s forgotten a great deal about itself. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a19167/snowden-and-the-drug-war/>