Theodore Shaw had an eye-opening little piece in The Washington Post over the weekend, taking on Justice Scalia's recent concurrence in Kansas v. Marsh. Worth a read. I try to stay up on these issues and yet I didn't know about Shaw's examples; I bet I'm not the only one.

In an otherwise good column, Frank Rich writes (sub.) that the financial records surveillance program first revealed by The New York Times Web site didn't harm national security because terrorists already had been told and would in any event have assumed banking transactions were subject to monitoring. The claim is too absolute. A conservative on NPR yesterday pointed out that it has helped to catch terrorists in the past who were, as happens occasionally, careless enough to use the international banking system to transfer funds.

So it's fair only to say that the damage is likely to be minimal, although if an attack occurs because the program was publicized, the consequences would be severe. It's important to reiterate the lack of oversight and the examples of how in its absence, this administration has harmed the national security far more by making decisions with limited information, groupthink tendencies, and a limited ability to learn from mistakes. When we are instead inaccurate and deny any potential damage, we seem dishonest and ideological, the same charge of which we accuse the Bush administration; hardly a smart move. To say that oversight of our leaders promotes accountability is a plenty powerful argument; all the more reason not to exaggerate things.