To the Editor:

Edward J. Snowden’s confirmation of the extent of surveillance by American intelligence agencies now makes it clear why more leakers, whistle-blowers and journalists have become entangled with the law than ever before: they were starting to grasp the vastness of the electronic infrastructure while its managers struggled to shield it by legal precedents that would create a de facto Official Secrets Act. Any competent terrorist planner must have already taken evasive action as best he could.

But what exactly did American intelligence learn at the price of (once again) discrediting our government, compromising citizens’ privacy, making reporters collateral damage, and, as the facts inevitably spilled out, embarrassing and annoying the allies upon whom we depend for cooperation? We still don’t know.

I spent a quarter-century as a foreign correspondent in Europe, India and Israel. I cannot recall a major event that was forestalled or even clearly foreseen by American intelligence — India’s first atomic test in 1974, the 1973 Yom Kippur attack on Israel, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and, of course, the twin towers attack, which prompted linking all those databases and inadvertently making them vulnerable to penetration en masse.

Image Credit... Lily Padula

However you may judge Mr. Snowden’s acts, he has confirmed the existence of an intelligence underworld. Its regulatory capture of Congress must be ended, and the panel of secret judges must be broadened and given a staff to help oversee a bloated intelligence establishment that would surely threaten our liberties if it fell into the wrong political hands.