Glenn Greenwald said here of the lessons learnt from the Church Committee:
"The lesson of the Church Committee from the 1970s is that when you allow people in government to spy on Americans in the dark with no accountability and without warrant, they abuse that power and that’s what’s happened; it’s rampant abuse and it needs sunlight."Glenn Greenwald has previously also cited Cicero who said: "Laws are silent in times of war." Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) said of Glenn Greenwald and the abuse of terrror laws:
"In this respect, I can say this to David Cameron. Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state.
You have proven that these laws can be hideously abused. Which means they must be repealed. You have broken the trust that enables any such legislation to survive in a democracy. By so doing, you have attacked British democracy itself. What on earth do you have to say for yourself? And were you, in any way, encouraged by the US administration to do such a thing?"
