By Christopher B. Daly
I think he’s wrong (for reasons I hope to get to), but I also think it is worth reading this long post by David Simon, author of “The Wire” and much else.
Worth noting: the reason that David Simon can hold forth on this subject is that journalists ferreted out the details of this program, relying in part on leaks of classified information from confidential sources. Without those sources and those journalists, we would all still be in the dark.
Prof Chris Daly's Blog 