Don’t Let the NSA Kill the Internet

Thirty, 20 or even 10 years from now, will historians write that the unbridled zeal of the National Security Agency fatally undermined US leadership in the Information Age and the creation of a truly global Internet? The way out of this diplomatic dead-end street is less Bad America and more Good America: robust public debate and strong checks and balances. Better than President Obama’s appointment of a commission to review surveillance programs would be a law that lets U.S. companies disclose information about government requests for customer data, which would help shore up their credibility overseas. Better judgment about when and how to snoop on which foreign leaders wouldn’t hurt, either. Otherwise, the next time the U.S. picks up the phone, it might hear a friend saying, “Auf Wiedersehen.”