Ms. Brand wrote that while the legal question was “difficult,” the government’s legal theory was “at least a reasonable reading, made in good faith by numerous officials in two administrations of different parties.” She also worried that declaring that counterterrorism officials “have been operating this program unlawfully for years” could damage morale and make agencies overly cautious in taking steps to protect the country.

This is the most massively flawed line of reasoning I've ever heard spewed and I'm not even remotely shocked someone thinks this way.

To follow this argument:

-Because two presidents-- both of whom have been heavily criticized for their subversion of the law by way of highly controversial interpretations of rewritings of the law-- have deemed this program okay, that we should not question (and somehow moreso because they're from different parties, as if there's a difference)... it is... I don't have words for that. Willful ignorance?

-And then to continue on her reasoning, we should not question this program because it might... make people uncomfortable? They won't like it? Morale will fall in a country already losing faith in its government because of things like this program, so keep in place because public forum on it would make things worse? Am I fucking insane or did she make that argument in earnest? And at this point to call any government agency oversight "overly cautious" would be a blessing above all else, considering we're discussing a section from the fucking PATRIOT Act. A damn sight of cautiousness would have helped with that.

The report also scrutinizes in detail a handful of investigations in which the program was used, finding “no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”

Well that's good to hear at least. There's no way someone can continue to support it on those grounds then because I was certain someone would make that--

Still, in her dissent, Ms. Cook criticized judging the program’s worth based only on whether it had stopped an attack to date. It also has value as a tool that can allow investigators to “triage” threats and provide “peace of mind” if it uncovers no domestic links to a newly discovered terrorism suspect, she wrote.

Oh. Well isn't that a nice little bow for my cynicism.