Very interesting snippet from a WashPo interview with General Michael Hayden, former head of the NSA.

Q: Privacy advocates say the government is asking Americans to trust it when it comes to the NSA’s activities. Given the existing level of mistrust of the government, what is the argument for trusting the NSA?

A: One argument is, you may or may not think what NSA was doing in terms of the metadata and the American telephone records or the PRISM program or the e-mails — foreign based, but collected here in the United States — you may actually think, “You know, I need to know more about that. I’m not comfortable.” But you can’t say it was illegal. It reflects two laws of Congress in 2006 and 2008, passed by both houses, by both parties, overseen by the intelligence committees, approved by the courts. I mean, in the American system of separation of powers, that’s a trifecta — executive, legislative, judicial branches. So it’s not illegal.

But i’m quite open to a national conversation about, “Got it. Not illegal, now is it wise?” To have that conversation, my old community is going to simply have to explain what it is they’re doing more than we have historically done. I actually think that if we get to most people out of the mainstream — all right, here’s what we’re doing, here’s why we’re doing it, here’s why it helps, here’s how we’re overseeing it — I think most people would say, “Eh, I wish maybe you didn’t have to, but okay. I’m okay for now. Call me in a couple of years.”

It’s impossible to imagine a British official or government minister talking like this.

Justice Hugo Black’s Opinion in the US Supreme Court judgment of June 30, 1971 which allowed the New York Times and the Washington Post to continue publishing the Pentagon Papers:

“In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”