[font size=4]Congress should hang up the NSA phone tracking[/font]
[font size=1 color="gray"]By Eugene Robinson, Published: June 20[/font]

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It’s important to keep in mind that Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who absconded to Hong Kong and started blabbing secrets, has thus far disclosed the existence of two separate clandestine programs. One, known internally as PRISM, involves the international harvesting of e-mails and other electronic communications. The other involves the domestic collection of phone call “metadata” — a vast, pointillist record of our contacts and movements.

The NSA’s defenders have consistently — and, I believe, deliberately — blurred the distinction between the two. When they talk about the would-be terrorists who have been nabbed and the potential devastation that has been prevented, they lump the programs together.

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But it is becoming clear that we should consider “these programs” separately. Privacy concerns aside, PRISM at least seems to produce results. Unless we’re flat-out being lied to, PRISM — which does not target Americans — has produced substantial quantities of useful information about bad people overseas who seek to do us harm.

The phone-call tracking, on the other hand, is a huge infringement on Americans’ privacy that has not been shown to have much investigative value, if any.

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