In his commencement address at Ohio State, Obama told the students that they should not listen to voices of “cynicism” (which is to say, people who argue that the government often has bad motives and harms people). Little did he know that just a week or two later, he’d need to amplify that idea and broadcast it to the whole nation, as the federal snooping operations became public knowledge.
But shouldn’t Americans just trust government officials? In his column today, Sheldon Richman argues that they should not.
