But the revelations that come out every day of programs that began under Bush and have continued under Obama suggest that he doesn't grasp this as clearly as he should. Or recognize the lasting stain it threatens to leave on his record.*

This latest NSA news from Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani in the Washington Post (working with Edward Snowden) about NSA hacking right into Google's and Yahoo's "clouds" rather than presenting the companies with subpoenas, really is appalling. How are these companies supposed to view a government that is actively working to infiltrate them? How are any of the global customers they are trying to hard to attract supposed to feel about leaving info in their hands? To say nothing of U.S. customers. Warrants from secret courts—that's bad enough, and at least pays lip service to the idea of laws and rule. There is no excuse for the intrusions these documents appear to show.

I have good friends who work or have worked at NSA, and I know that they have the enlightened best interests of the country always in mind. But over-reach by their agency and the security establishment—starting under Bush, ongoing under Obama—is badly harming American interests, ideals, and institutions. The president is the only person in a position to signal a change in course, and he had better do it fast.

Here is one of the images from the latest Post story, in which the NSA is happy-facing its success in cracking Google's internals.

* Yes, such Democratic idealists as Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, and such a Republican/American hero as Abraham Lincoln, encroached on civil liberties during their respective wars. But those were temporary, and the wars ended. Obama needs to take actions that match his words about the risks of a permanent-warfare state.