It’s time to let Edward Snowden come home New Yorker – John Cassidy. It’s hard to summarize Cassidy’s work – one ultimately falls short of capturing the brilliance of his writing. I’ll nonetheless try to do so. In his most recent piece, Cassidy astutely points out that if it weren’t for Edward Snowden, the NSA’s “excesses would never have come to light, the U.S.A. Freedom Act wouldn’t exist, and the N.S.A. would still be merrily sweeping up phone records and analyzing them as it saw fit.” Therefore, he argues, we can be quite certain that history will look kindly upon Snowden’s leaks. As such, the US should be grateful that this man unveiled the glaring illegality of America’s intelligence community. While free nations must protect themselves, these nations must also protect basic human rights. And the Snowden leaks have made our politicians publicly deal with the inherent tension between liberty and security. Because of his “illegal” actions, we (as a nation) have now been forced to talk openly and honestly about philosophical subjects which would have otherwise been swept under the proverbial rug. That, in of itself, is worthy of our praise. I’ll give the last word to Cassidy: Americans understand that they live in a world that contains people and organizations intent on doing harm to the United States, and they are willing to grant the federal government some intrusive powers in order to protect the country and its citizenry. But they also want reassurance that the authorities aren’t monitoring the every move and communication of ordinary people who have nothing to do with terrorism or any other form of wrongdoing. Kansas Governor proposes tax hikes: Sam Brownback went on a tax-cutting spree three years ago and it is now safe to say that his conservative experiment has failed miserably . But, instead of rolling back his steep cuts to income and business taxes, he has now proposed an increase in the sales tax from 6.15 percent to … Continue reading Daily Clips: June 4th, 2015