Why NSA Surveillance Will Be More Damaging Than You Think

The real threat from terrorism is not the harm it inflicts directly but the over-reaction it provokes. We saw that with the invasion of Iraq. We're seeing it with security-state overreach. 

James Fallows, Jul 30 2013, 4:39 AM ET

This column over the weekend, by the British academic John Naughton in the Guardian, takes us one more step in assessing the damage to American interests in the broadest sense-- commercial, strategic, ideological - from the panopticon approach to "security" brought to us by NSA-style monitoring programs.

Naughton's essay doesn't technically tell us anything new. For instance, see earlier reports like this, this, and this. But it does sharpen the focus in a useful way.