Data-Demining

The revelation that the super-secret National Security Agency has been vacuuming up so-called meta-data from foreign and American communications has lots of us in a full-scale flail.

The libertarian Right denounces it as an unacceptable abuse of government power.  Even the Left that normally, reflexively supports whatever President Obama does is up in arms.

But is this effort to detect and counter patterns of behavior that may be associated with terrorists and their plots legitimate and necessary?  All three branches of government agree it is legal and required – provided Team Obama is not doing as it has elsewhere: namely, abusing its powers for political purposes.

It would be better to focus counterterrorism efforts against those jihadists seeking our destruction.  Until then, this metadata mining is likely to be necessary.