No one would argue that it's in the United States' interest to have independent knowledge of the plans and intentions of foreign countries. But we need to think about where to draw the line on these kind of operations so we're not always attacking our allies, the people we trust, the people we need to rely on, and to have them in turn rely on us.

Are our competitors - for example, China, which is a deeply authoritarian nation - becoming more authoritarian or more liberal over time?

That's one of the biggest issues that we see in the question of governments right now, I think, in the Western world. Is that increasingly all of our elected officials are pulled from the same class. These aren't normal people. I don't want to say they're all terrible people, but at the same time, they're not like you and me. These are people who have sort of a nine to five working history.

No one would argue that it's in the United States' interest to have independent knowledge of the plans and intentions of foreign countries. But we need to think about where to draw the line on these kind of operations so we're not always attacking our allies, the people we trust, the people we need to rely on, and to have them in turn rely on us.

An investigation found the specific people who authorized the warrantless wiretapping of millions and millions of communications, which per count would have resulted in the longest sentences in world history, and our highest official simply demanded the investigation be halted. Who "can" be brought up on charges is immaterial when the rule of law is not respected. Laws are meant for you, not for them.

If the United States is promoting the development of exploits, of vulnerabilities, of insecurity in this critical infrastructure, and we're not fixing it when we find it, instead we put it on the shelf so we can use it the next time we want to launch an attack against some foreign country. We're leaving ourselves at risk.

When we talk about the assertion of basically new government privileges with weak or no justification, we don't even have to look at international law to see the failings in them.