Do NOT let the libertarian wing of the GOP lead the cause to rein in the surveillance state! [View all]

In 1968 many Americans voted for Richard Nixon believing that they were voting to end the war in Vietnam and bring the troops home. Wouldn't it be a terrible shame if in 2014 or 2016 many American voted Republican believing that the GOP was more likely to rein in the surveillance state that to a large degree they created?

Now that the American people are becoming increasingly aware of the intrusiveness of the surveillance state and the long term threat it posses to our liberty as a people and our viability as a democracy - the defense of the status quo or suggestions for only mild and cosmetic changes are necessary can only hurt the Democratic Party and strengthen our adversaries.

Is it not now the time for all progressive, liberals and Democrats to acknowledge that enormous mistakes were made and a policy that may very well have been supported in good faith - in the past - is not keeping us safer and does in fact threaten our viability as a free people in a liberal and western democracy?

Whatever one thinks of Edward Snowden or Julian Assange or Bradley Manning or Glenn Greenwald is irrelevant to the core issue of the need to rein in the Intelligence Industrial Complex - and to make sure that it is liberals, progressives and Democrats leading this battle cry to save liberal western democracy from this dangerous threat.

"It is not excessive to believe this growing, gargantuan, secret complex now represents the greatest threat to our freedom in the new twenty-first century." - - former U.S. Senator Gary Hart