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One way of looking at it.
Another is that *this* happened after a massive 15y expansion of US surveillance and security powers, which utterly failed to stop it. And asking the people to sacrifice more of their privacy and liberty after a security state failure is the oldest of authoritarian impulses.
It may be that FBI didn’t have the statutory tools to investigate Trump-Russia effectively, but that’s hardly established by the evidence we have. What we read in yesterday’s reports is they lacked the determination to even open an investigation into Trump (until Comey’s firing).
And we know that US political leadership, hindered by Senator McConnell’s objections, could not coalesce around a clear public repudiation of Russia’s interference before the election. That’s a problem, but not one that more intrusive surveillance authorities can solve.
I think liberals role in the aftermath of *this* (swiftly may it come) ought to be resisting kneejerk incursions on civil liberties, demanding full disclosure of what happened, and using that evidence (rather than passing infatuations) to reform the system.
