Chris Hitchens is mighty bothered by the discovery that he was the subject of one of those warrantless wiretaps conducted by the NSA. It’s not just the intrusion privacy that seems to anger him, but the waste of resources:
We are, in essence, being asked to trust the state to know best. What reason do we have for such confidence? The agencies entrusted with our protection have repeatedly been shown, before and after the fall of 2001, to be conspicuous for their incompetence and venality. No serious reform of these institutions has been undertaken or even proposed: Mr George Tenet (whose underlings have generated leaks designed to sabotage the Administration’s own policy of regime-change in Iraq, and whose immense and unconstitutionally secret budget could not finance the infiltration of a group which John Walker Lindh could join with ease) was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Read the whole thing. While you’re at it, you oughtta check out The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets, James Bamford’s books about the NSA, in case you ever thought any phone conversation you had might have been private.