Jeb Bush: 'I don't understand' why anyone is upset about the NSA


Likely GOP presidential candidate Gov. Jeb Bush is eager to distinguish between himself and his ex-president father and brother. But comments he made on Wednesday about the creepy spying practices of the NSA suggest he shares their support for a robust surveillance state:
[T]he NSA metadata program... contributes to awareness of potential terrorist cells and interdiction efforts on a global scale. For the life of me, I don't understand [how] the debate has gotten off track, where we're not understanding and protecting — we do protect our civil liberties, but this is a hugely important program to use these technologies to keep us safe. [National Journal]
Despite Bush's confident assessment of the effectiveness of the NSA, reports suggest the mass surveillance program "ha[s] no discernible impact" in preventing terrorism.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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