Reality Control

Interesting argument that the US government puts forward in its quest to lock up journalists for publishing leaks. They seem to expect us to believe that before the papers published these stories terrorists had no idea that the government might be tapping their phone or monitoring their bank transactions. This is despite the fact that the lawful methods of surveillance used by the security services are public knowledge and always have been.
These bone-headed justifications aside, what we have here is a government threatening to send journalists to jail for revealing that it broke its own laws.
But don't worry-congress has promptly responded to this crisis. They're now debating a bill that would make warrantless surveillance legal.
It is, apparently, every citizen's duty to report illegal activity. If the bill passes the criminals will magically become good citizens and the good citizens will become criminals. In fact, as the law would act retrospectively, they would always have been criminals. They just didn't realise it.
Remember Orwell's terrible future? This is how it starts.