Mr. Speaker, I think we also have to remember the context in which this information comes to us. It is from Edward Snowden, who has been releasing information. I have seen reports from the German media of an interview he did today, which was completely blacked-out so that citizens in the United States and Canada could not see his interview, wherein he describes what he has seen as a security officer misrepresented by intelligence forces. This reminds me of what Count Münster said years ago in describing Czarist Russia as “Absolutism tempered by assassination”. I wonder if we are looking at “Big Brother tempered by leaks”.
Without citizen oversight, how do we assess the difference between legitimate inquiry and an extensive and anti-democratic invasion of our privacy?