© TimesFormer Senator Dan Coats: He's no Mr. Rogers!
In 2013, just one week after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden came forward as the source of documents revealing the global extent of the NSA's mammoth surveillance regime, Coats penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal lambasting the disclosures and the ensuing media coverage. "Unfortunately, the Obama administration — especially of late — has fueled people's distrust of government, which has made the reaction to Mr. Snowden's leak far worse," he wrote, pleading with his colleagues in Congress to stop "mischaracterizing" the surveillance programs Snowden exposed.
Coats said the NSA's programs, including its bulk collection of American telephone records, were "legal, constitutional and used under the strict oversight of all three branches of government" — though courts later disagreed, and Congress amended the law to end the American records collection program, as Snowden pointed out on Twitter on Thursday.
While Coats professed his belief in defending privacy and national security in tandem, he focused his efforts on making sure the deep national security state escaped unscathed — losing none of its powers to engage in mass spying. He pushed for counterintelligence policies that would root out leakers like Snowden in the future. "The government's interest is the most compelling imaginable: To the best of our ability, never again allow an attack on our homeland that costs innocent lives," he wrote in a piece in USA Today, touting a bill he proposed that would not have ended the bulk collection of American phone data.
Comment: Perhaps Trump should 'go back to the well' on this one. Coats has despicable and controversial baggage.