Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) continued his impassioned defense of the National Security Agency’s collection of phone and Internet data on Tuesday, suggesting that he would push for surveillance of postal correspondence if he thought it strengthened the nation’s security.
Addressing reporters on Capitol Hill, Graham invoked the memory of World War II to defend the NSA’s actions.
“In World War II, the mentality of the public was that our whole way of life was at risk, we’re all in. We censored the mail. When you wrote a letter overseas, it got censored. When a letter was written back from the battlefield to home, they looked at what was in the letter to make sure they were not tipping off the enemy,” Graham said, as quoted by Yahoo! News. “If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don’t think it is.”
