Photo courtesy of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and MuseumWe’ve talked about the NSA phone and email dragnet. And its apparent links to FCPA enforcement, and the double standard toward whistleblowers inside government and outside.
But there are bigger issues.
Why, for example, should anyone be concerned about the government’s massive domestic spy program that operates secretly behind the shield of national security?
Fifty years ago, President Kennedy answered that question.
The U.S. was at war then too. The enemy wasn’t terrorism but Communism. During the Cold War, a lot of people wanted America to be less open. That, some argued, would make it stronger and better able to defend its citizens against the Red Menace.
But Kennedy rejected the argument.
Even while facing a much-feared foreign threat, he defended transparency and government accountability, and a free press.
Here’s what he said:
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