How is it apt? If the genuine national security aims pursued by the NSA can be aptly compared to those of the Gestapo, we're well past the point where it makes any difference exactly what techniques they're using to achieve those aims. If their aims are more reasonable, then, again, what's wrong with a spy agency trying to spy?
In other words, the U.S.A.'s national security interests bear little resemblance to those of Nazi Germany (I can't believe I have to type that).
I think a lot of that depends on exactly who's being targeted, and for what reasons. Those revelations haven't made it out yet. The only information we have is the NSA director answering "Not intentionally, no" when asked if the NSA ever spied on American citizens, along with Snowden's allegations that there are no checks and balances if an employee of the NSA believed that they did, and Russ Tice's claim that the NSA spied on Obama.
It's often forgotten that there were many people in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia or Communist China or North Korea that believe those countries are completely justified in their actions as well. The reason they are widely reviled is because they lost: people outside of their culture came in, beat them down either economically or militarily, and said "That's not okay what you do to your own citizens."
If I look at the facts of what the Nazis did in the 1930s (before the gas chambers and concentration camps), it was that they turned a large portion of their state security apparatus inward and devoted it to controlling a portion of their population that the ruling class deemed undesirable. I don't know whether the same thing goes on at the NSA; I hope it doesn't. I do know that there should be checks & balances to make sure that it doesn't, because it can become an awfully slippery slope.
A lot of those questions simply tie back into the age-old debate over capability.
You can talk about checks and balances all you want, but if you hand a "trusted soldier" a rifle he may yet kill many of the wrong people before he can be stopped. Yet people don't typically lie awake at night staring at the ceiling worrying about the local National Guard violating Posse Comitatus and imposing martial law.
But on the other hand the capability still exists, so we do make at least cursory efforts at mitigating this risk. We perform nominal screening of recruits into the military, we keep most weapons locked up in the armory when the soldiers are at garrison, we train soldiers at all levels of where their allegiance lies, what Posse Comitatus means, etc.
So it is with the NSA. Let's say they determine that the NSA needs the ability to perform surveillance, but that Snowden's revelations have demonstrated that better checks-and-balances are needed, even though there's no evidence of "Stasi-like activity", just to be safe. They go and add these required checks-and-balances.... do you still feel ultra-threatened by NSA?
There are plenty of checks and balances against a local national guard violating posse comitatus, namely that the federal government would then send in the rest of the army - all of whom are sworn to protect and defend America and its citizens - to right the situation.
The problem with the NSA is that if they are abusing their power, nobody will ever know about it, because everybody they deal with is sworn to secrecy. Abuses are far more likely to happen in this situation, not because of any inherent maliciousness, but because whenever you have a large organization that never has to face an opposing viewpoint you end up with groupthink and a large possibility of ill-considered decisions.
I'd be satisfied with detailed congressional oversight. Unfortunately, the last time the NSA director was called before a congressional subcommittee, his statements don't seem to match up with the actual operations of his agency, as they've been leaked since. I hear some congressional reps are pretty mad about that.
In other words, the U.S.A.'s national security interests bear little resemblance to those of Nazi Germany (I can't believe I have to type that).
Fine, I'll concede the singular moral uniqueness of the government of Germany from 1933 to 1945.
How about the Stasi? The KGB? The COINTELPRO-era FBI? The Star Chamber? These were all arms of governments as legitimate as mine or any other, and their aims were exactly that of every other internal security agency. The harm they did was not some sort of moral corruption, it can't be cured by being the good guys or on the side of the good guys.
These were evil organizations consisting of evil people because of what they did, not why they did it. An East German government without the Stasi is just yet another poorly run postwar client state. The Soviet Union without the KGB (and a few other atrocities) is just a large developing country with some ill-considered economic policies.
Post Church Commission America is just a better version of America. When the children of ex-NSA employees lie to their friends that their father left when they were young because the truth would be embarrassing, it will be a better America still.
> When the children of ex-NSA employees lie to their friends that their father left when they were young because the truth would be embarrassing, it will be a better America still.
What the FUCK, man. Is this seriously how you think? Are all of your moral questions so easily placed into neat little bins?
In other words, the U.S.A.'s national security interests bear little resemblance to those of Nazi Germany (I can't believe I have to type that).