Surveillance vs Democracy

“Watergate and a lot of things around Watergate and Vietnam… served, I think, to erode the authority … the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area” – Vice President and Former Nixon Staffer Dick Cheney
Imagine White House operatives were caught wiretapping Democratic National Committee headquarters during the coming Presidential election season. That according to the head of the DNC, those listening in had overheard the conversations of what the Chairman speculated to be “perhaps every prominent Democrat in America.” Imagine senior White House staff with the help of current and former U.S. intelligence agency personnel conducted illegal break-ins, wiretapping, and espionage against ordinary citizens, journalists, Democratic Party candidates, and even members of its own administration for the purposes of political dominance and electoral victory. Now imagine the President justified it all and sought to conceal its existence with a claim of national security and executive privilege.
It was called Watergate, and it may be more relevant today than it has been at any time since Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace more than 30 years ago.
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