Report: NSA Surveillance Panel's First Meeting Dodges Change

Ten days ago, the UK newspaper The Guardian reported on an Obama Administration panel's initial meeting to determine changes to NSA surveillance practices and data collection. The group included representatives from tech heavyweights (with the notable exception of Amazon), insiders from the fed's spy world, and think tank policy mavens. Some participants claimed the meeting was a borderline sham, in which no change was discussed and tech firms worked hard to advance their interests. Those "interests" did not necessarily coincide with those of the larger body of American citizens, who have discovered the military-technology complex has compromised their constitutional right to privacy.

Some details from the Guardian's story offer a disturbing look into what passes for transparency inside the Beltway. The meeting, one participant noted, was something less than a full, open dialogue. For one participant, the tech firms, who dominated the 90-minute meeting, seemed to be walking through a prepared script.

Representatives from the technology firms were identified around the table not by their names, but by placards listing their employers. There was minimal technical discussion of surveillance mechanisms despite the presence of technology companies; (the participant) took the representatives to be lawyers, not technologists.

When it appeared like the meeting would discuss a surveillance issue in a sophisticated way, participants and commissioners suggested it be done in a classified meeting. (The participant) interpreted that as a maneuver to exclude his more-critical viewpoint.

The privacy vs. surveillance issue is one of the few issues where American conservatives and liberals share a common concern. It is the conservatives' great shame that they allowed the Bush Administration to emasculate personal privacy guarantees; it is the liberals' great shame that they have played matador to the Obama Administration's bullish advocacy of the NSA's breathtaking data and communication sweeps.

It's a sad state of affairs when a British newspaper takes the lead and sheds light -- continued light -- on this American issue. No Fox News, no NPR, no major American media player really wants this story. That's a national shame.