The Surveillance State
A week back, Thomas Friedman, the distinguished author and columnist for the New York Times, wrote a column approving of the NSA's surveillance and monitoring of metadata of email and phone calls for pretty much everyone. His argument: I like civil liberties, civil liberties will take it on the chin even more than they are now if we have another 9-11 style attack. So the government should do all that is can to prevent another such attack, and if that's what the surveillance is doing, I'm in favor of it. Also, that this has been going on for two American presidencies now. What an idiot! OK, I mean, Thomas Friedman isn't an idiot, and there's a certain soothing logic to his column which reflects an opinion that's apparently shared by a lot of my fellow Americans. But it's wrong, it's misguided, and quite obviously so. It took me several days of mulling over Thomas Friedman's soothing article to zone in on the basic fallacy, but once you do, it'...