The unanswered question of the NSA / CIA scandal
The Snowden leaks have been slowly but surely trickling out, clearly demonstrating that the US goverment had not been forthright either with its Allies or with its citizens. The US government had been participating in the assasination of foreign civilians (chpper video, Wikileaks), violating taken for granted right of privacy of its citizens, as well as actively participating in foreign assasinations--not to mention the unquestionable tapping of foreign leaders' communications (Angela Merkel, Germany). The illusions of conspiracy theorists didn't even come close to the actual scale of governemtan conspiracy and atrocitie.
The inevitable question that arises from this flagrant abuse of power that has yet to be answered: Has US governemnt participated in the assasination of its own citizens, internally?
This might seem like a difficult and unlikely question to ponder. After all, drones generally do not fly in US airspace, and we rarely see BlackHawks suspiciously hovering around urban civilian areas. The inmeidate evidence before us suggests that such agenncies have not been participating in what would certainly be the most agregious abuse of power seen since the US colonial period prior to its actual formation.
Yet, further contemplation, might also lead to the purposeful opening up of this Pandora's box for evaluation.
In light of clear and well-established lines of civil and criminal law in the United States, it would behove any powerful actor to act in such a way as to avoid the suggestion of such activities 'by any means necesary'. This would lead to various outcomes. Specifically, it implies that assasinations would always be undertaken in the most covert of maners, so as to not even bring forth the very notion that an assasination had in fact taken place. "Naturalizing" an assasination via medicine might be such a way, along with many other.
The government might respond to this notion that they had not been comitting such atrocities. "Absurd!" "Preposterous!" "Trust us", might be heard in the shallow halls of power. Yet, given the absence of any governemtn transparency at all--even to the point that subjects who have been charged (Lavabit) cannot even make public statements with regard to the charges that have been brougth against them--it is clear that any governmental claims of higher moral authority have been invalidadted long ago.
It is clearly time for another Church Committee, similar to the one that investigated the CIAs involvement in foreign affaris some forty years ago.
If such power was brazenly (and most covertly used) abroad, what would prevent similar abuses from ocurring at home? Very few.