For myself, I’m less sanguine about Freeman’s attachment to the Saudi rulers, but it’s a relatively minor matter to me compared to some of his views regarding acceptable governmental practices.

As for the changes made by the Bush administration to the NSA’s procedures and mandate, I approved of the increased surveillance of possibly hostile individuals and groups – but felt that they got caught up in not racial / culture profiling too much; they wasted a lot of effort looking into groups that were no threat in order to show – if needed – that they weren’t targeting Muslims.

On the other hand, I despised and condemned the warrantless wire-taps as being illegal, unconstitutional, and STUPID. When the Feds have “secret” courts that can securely provide warrants as needed, there’s no legitimate reason to abrogate people’s rights.

It’s true that we’re somewhat safe from his actions – as I noted. Just remember that the National Intelligence Council also interacts with the NSA and Homeland Security. As a progressive moderate I’m fairly sure you didn’t favor many of the actions of those two agencies over the last few years. I think you should be even more concerned now because of Freeman.

He just seems to have some good alliances that might be useful in intelligence circles, and he seems to have refused to swallow the neo-cons good guy versus bad guy idealogy. .. In fact, his very honest rhetoric and realism may be his downfall.. But someone with his Chinese background…could be very useful and his Saudi Arabia ties..after all, I kind of believe in the..idea of having someone in the marketplace of ideas who knows how to talk to the heavyweights.