My answer to that would be to invoke someone that you'll remember—and we're showing our age here—Ronald Reagan, who, in response to Mikhail Gorbachev said, “We need to trust but verity.” I think this applies to all of our security agencies. In a liberal democracy, it's essential that you have robust safeguards, oversight mechanisms, public accountability and transparency.
What we are seeing here is clearly failing that. If you compare it with what's going on in other countries it's not setting a very good example. It's in line with some of the flawed democracies around the world.
I think we need to have a much more robust net cast over all of this if we're going to use this type of technology, which, by the way, is like a quantum leap in capabilities. What we're talking about here is much different from a wiretap because a device provides a window into every aspect of a person's life and those around them.
As I said in my remarks, this is nuclear level surveillance technology. We need appropriate safeguards to match that sophistication and power.