Comment on "Obama's spying overhaul proposals too weak" (China Daily website, Jan 19)

An article, "Secret wars and blackops blowback", by Nick Turse in the Jan 17 edition of Asia Times, says: "President (Barack) Obama ... has overseen 'a vast secret operation of unrivaled proportions'," and that the "spread of a secret military is undergoing ... mindless expansion on a gargantuan scale."

During his campaign for the presidential election, Obama had said that he was against all spying activities and constitutional violations by then president George W. Bush. But as soon as he took office, he expanded the surveillance program "on a gargantuan scale", says Turse in the article. That we, the people of the US, have been given no guarantee like the one given to those "leaders of its close friends and allies" is a violation of the US Constitution.

So, is there really any difference between Republicans and Democrats? The fact is that the mission of the Obama administration and the Republican administration that preceded it is the same: to protect each other. Had former National Security Agency operative Edward Snowden not shown the courage to expose the US' surveillance program, the Obama administration might have succeeded in fooling us all.

Daniel Russell, via e-mail

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