[DKnoll3]

Please explain how the State had 100% surveillance of attackers'/terrorists' communications before they became electronic, and I'll be "genuinely concerned" about the "crippling" of their work.

Sounds more like we're returning to a state of how things were (suspicions would have to be aroused, and actual police work would have to be done, instead of just retrieving all of the relevant metadata on people the State doesn't like from a database of just about every piece of information transmitted across a wire for 50+ years).