The Surveillance Fiasco

[Commentary] The Senate holdouts trying to preserve US antiterror surveillance programs in their current form have conceded defeat amid an intelligence blackout that will last at least into June 3, and thus Congress will soon congratulate itself on “reform.” Don’t buy this self-celebration. The more honest resolution of the metadata political panic would be to abolish the program outright. Senate passage of the House bill may be the only realistic path to prevent even greater harm to US security. But please spare us the civil-libertarian triumphalism. The real story this week is that Congress is harming and maybe ending an important defense against terrorism, while pretending not to.