Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s ‘least untruthful’ formulation of an answer to Ron Wyden made clear that the volume of information stored by the federal government about Americans’ communications has been dramatically understated. Julian Sanchez, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, argues that an honest debate about the supposed tradeoffs between liberty and security is one that can be had in public without giving over essential information to bad actors.

Video produced by Caleb O. Brown and Blair Gwaltney.