America as Economic Spy: NSA's Mission Is Self-Aggrandizement, Not Fighting Terrorism

[Commentary] The government justifies the National Security Agency's expansive domestic and foreign surveillance with essentially one argument: security. As we learned from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents published recently, the NSA's official talking points encouraged officials to use the threat of another 9/11 to justify the surveillance programs leaked by Edward Snowden. It's not just the lies about this spying having foiled terror plots. NSA conducts surveillance that could not conceivably have anything to do with fighting terrorists. Take, for example, the tapping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's personal cell phone for 10 years. Or the fact that NSA has been spying on the Brazilian oil company Petrobras. In the latest news, President Barack Obama ordered the NSA to halt surveillance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These have led to accusations that the US is engaged in industrial espionage, using the spying capacities of intelligence agencies to gain an economic edge, instead of fighting terrorists.