washington we wanted a president that listens to all americans now we have one how ironic is that joked jay leno over the weekend referring to washingtons unfolding worldwide snooping saga the white house is looking into our phone records checking our computers monitoring our emails when did the government suddenly become our psycho exgirlfriend grimfaced obama administration officials from the president himself and his aides to the countrys chief spymaster went into damage control as more details tumbled out over the vastness and depth of possible surveillance on america and rest of the world the explanations did little to staunch the disquiet that finally emerged in the form of a new poster a ripoff on obamas election mantra with the picture of a headphone clad obama at the centre it read yes we scan at the heart of the government clarifications is the argument that washington is doing nothing illegal and that every step it takes is lawful under legislation passed by congress and as mandated by law it is further filtered through a judicial process even if the proceedings are secret moreover despite the apparent vastness of the programme that enables it to tap into and collect billions of pieces of information every month most of the initial information is metadata extensive but also relatively anonymous like how many calls or emails emerge from a particular place etc getting further details in the event of suspicion of terrorist links etc required due process its not as if there are people sitting there reading every piece of information that may be in the universe of collection that the us government has a white house official explained on saturday were not listening to anybodys phone calls were also not going out and seeking to read peoples electronic communications he added echoing the president if we were able to detect a potential nexus to terrorism wed have to go back to a judge and pursue a warrant to try to investigate that lead just as we would in any other intelligence or criminal procedure underlying all these explanations is the argument that in the post911 era it is necessary for the us government to be equipped with the technology to detect potential terrorist networks and attacks but such powers are being tempered with responsibilities and due process their purpose is to obtain foreign intelligence information including information necessary to thwart terrorist and cyber attacks against the us and its allies james clapper the director of national intelligence said on saturday