Reining in the NSA

Every once in a while the Republican House gets something right:

The Hill reports that the House is expected to vote on an amendment to a Defense Appropriations bill that is aimed at limiting the National Security Agency’s powers to collect information on Americans’ telephone and internet traffic.

One measure — put forward by Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) — will prevent the NSA from using the PATRIOT Act to collect records of people who are not under investigation and another says the Agency cannot target U.S. citizens.

I especially love this statement from the White House:

[W]e oppose the current effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of our Intelligence Community’s counterterrorism tools,” a statement from White House press secretary Jay Carney says. “This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process. We urge the House to reject the Amash Amendment, and instead move forward with an approach that appropriately takes into account the need for a reasoned review of what tools can best secure the nation.”

Seriously, they want to have "an informed, open and deliberative process" about all this?  Are you kidding me?

The right time to have that kind of process was before we created this surveillance monstrosity in the first place.

And if you're going to have an "informed, open and deliberative" process about this now, you have to tell us what you are doing. But instead of doing that, you are doing everything in your power to make sure we don't know what you are doing.  How can the process be "informed, open and deliberative" under those circumstances?

I feel like I'm living in Orwell's world...