Count liberal actor Alec Baldwin as a critic of the government’s aggressive snooping campaign.
Baldwin, the combustible star of 30 Rock, thinks Americans’ wish to rather be “safe than sorry” regarding potential terror attacks is misguided.
I do think that the democracy that we believe in and tell ourselves that we believe in, to preserve it, it takes a lot of work. And it seems that we live in a world now where people aren’t willing to do the hard work and heavy lifting….
Baldwin quickly connected the current National Security Agency’s policies with President George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House.
There are many, many hard working people, but I’m talking about in terms of to conduct a policy, they sit there — and this began in the previous administration — they said let’s just make this easier on ourselves.
The actor also used a boating metaphor to drive his points home.
Let’s just do what we need to do, and if something is going to get jettisoned, if we’re in a lifeboat and we need to throw something over the side and lessen the load here to ensure our survival, some of these rights will be tossed aside. That’s a shame.