That’s the best the NSA has got?

Somalia

“He was a San Diego cab driver who fled Somalia as a teenager, winning asylum in the United States after he was wounded during fighting among warring tribes. Today, Basaaly Moalin, 36, is awaiting sentencing following his conviction on charges that he sent $8,500 to Somalia in support of the terrorist group al-Shabab.

Moalin’s prosecution, barely noticed when the case was in court, has suddenly come to the fore of a national debate about U.S. surveillance. Under pressure from Congress, senior intelligence officials have offered it as their primary example of the unique value of a National Security Agency program that collects tens of millions of phone records from Americans.” (emphasis added)

See the whole story.

$8,500.

So the end that supposedly justify the government’s evil means is a cab driver wiring money home to one of many factions vying for control of his home country?

Al-Shabab sounds pretty evil as well, but, the NSA’s best example to justify the Stasi’s wet dream is not foiling a threat to Americans, nor even a threat in the western hemisphere, nor even a terrorist plot or plan at all, but wiring money home so Al-Shabab could buy perhaps 20 AK-47s.

That’s the best justification they have.

It makes me wonder if the government’s evil outweighs its incompetence or its incompetence outweighs its evil.

Addition: Perhaps you are not convinced a total surveillance state is so bad, read this.