“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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New York Times Editorial Board: This Week, Mass Surveillance Wins
Has the National Security Agency’s mass collection of Americans’ phone records actually helped to prevent terrorist attacks?
No, according to the 300-page report issued this month by a panel of legal and intelligence experts appointed by President Obama.
Yet in a ruling issued on Friday, Judge William Pauley III of the Federal District Court in Manhattan came to the opposite conclusion. “The effectiveness of bulk telephony metadata collection cannot be seriously disputed,” Judge Pauley wrote in a deeply troubling decision dismissing a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union that challenged the constitutionality of the N.S.A.’s bulk data collection program. [..]
The presidential panel made many good recommendations to reform both the surveillance law and the intelligence court that rules on government surveillance requests. Congress and Mr. Obama should adopt as many of these as possible. Court rulings will not suffice to rein in an agency that continues to take advantage of the law’s vague and malleable standards.
Bill Blum: The NSA Strikes Back
Just when you thought that momentum in the struggle to rein in the NSA was shifting in the direction of civil liberties, along comes another reminder that momentum is fleeting and the war is a long way from being won-or lost.
The momentum shift this time comes in the form of an opinion crafted by U.S. District Judge William Pauley dismissing a challenge to the NSA’s telephone metadata collection program brought in New York by the ACLU. Released midday Friday, as a perverse kind of New Year’s gift to the Justice Department, Pauley rejected virtually every argument, statutory and constitutional, raised by the ACLU to block the metadata program. [..]
It’s tempting to think that when the dust ultimately settles, the Supreme Court, with its awful record on such constitutional questions as campaign finance (Citizens United) and voting rights (Shelby County v. Holder), will place its stamp of approval on the surveillance state-especially since the chief justice himself appoints the members of the FISA Court that has backed the NSA. Still, as Leon’s ruling proves, the issue of NSA spying makes for strange judicial bedfellows and alliances, unexpected story lines and surprising outcomes. So stay tuned: With public opinion trending squarely against the NSA and the fate of privacy in the modern world hanging in the balance, this legal drama is just getting started.
This is the season of lists: roundups and recaps, forecasts and resolutions.
What was the biggest story of the year? Snowden.
The best movie? “12 Years a Slave.”
The splashiest pop culture moment? Twerk, Miley!
Will the health care rollout roll over the president’s second-term agenda? Who’ll win in 2016? Who are the people to watch? Can Pope Francis top his 2013 cool points?
We resolve to go back to the gym and lose a few pounds, to pay off that credit card debt and up our savings, and to tell that overbearing boss to “chill out!”
I must say that as corny as it all is, I’m always entertained by it. In fact, “entertained” may be too mild a word. I’m enthralled by it, mostly because I connect with the more profound undercurrent of the moment: the idea of marking endings and beginnings, the ideas of commemoration and anticipation.
For that reason, the new year has always been my favorite time of the year.
Conor F. McGovern: The Graying of Our Incarceration Nation
The incarceration of vast swaths of the American public is now an aging issue. Our prisons have increasingly become homes for the aging, as there are now some 125,000 prisoners age 55 or older, nearly quadruple the number there were in 1995. Many of these prisoners are serving life sentences, but others soon will be released into society facing special hardships because of their age. They will join a massive and steadily increasing population of aging ex-offenders who always will bear the scars to their mental, physical and financial well-being that come with having been a prisoner in America. [..]
America is aging, and with it ages the largest population of prisoners and former prisoners in the industrialized world. This is no longer just an issue of criminal justice. It has become an issue of elder justice and retirement security, and it is time the aging community supports this large and growing group of older Americans.
David Sirota: Celebrating the End of the Fake ‘War on Christmas’
Another winter solstice has come and gone, and yes, the annual celebration of the birth of Jesus has once again survived the alleged “War on Christmas.” In fact, as of this year, this pretend war may finally be ending-and not because those “defending” Christmas won some big battle, but because more and more Americans are realizing there is no such war at all. [..]
All of this is good news-especially because these welcome public opinion trends are coinciding with a renewed effort by the divide-and-conquer crowd to continue manufacturing division. Indeed, as just one example, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly tried to make the “War on Christmas” meme into a full-on race war by insisting that both Santa Claus and Jesus must be depicted as white. Apparently, Rupert Murdoch’s cable television empire is still trying to turn the holiday into another excuse to promote conflict. Thankfully, polls show that the ruse isn’t working.
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