[pyre]

You're using the lack of an attack as proof that the system works, but it's proof of nothing. If I start using a special scented soap while travelling in India, can I come back and state that the use of the soap prevents tiger attacks because I was attacked 0 times while I was there? What about a shark repellent spray? I've been to the ocean many times and never been attacked by a shark because of my special spray!

  | it's very easy to create a lot of destruction and
  | disruption and fear with very mundane items

  | If it's so easy to accomplish, why doesn't it happen more?
  | Either terrorism is genuinely not a serious threat or our
  | security organizations are very good at what they do using
  | the tools they have at their disposal.

Prior to the powers given to the executive branch post-9/11, anyone could have executed the Boston Marathon Bombing, but it didn't happen. Timothy McVeigh could have launched his attack in the 1960's (provided he was alive then), but no one made such an attack. We didn't have:

  | Bombs going off every week in a major shopping mall or
  | in an airliner or in a bus

either.

  | I would be in favor of our security apparatuses 'taking a break'
  | or scaling back spying operations

You're treating this as a all-or-nothing approach. Either we have all-knowing spy agencies that can spy on anyone anywhere without any oversight, or we have spy agencies that are effectively shuttered.

[bmelton]

Why can't the middle ground just be that we have spy agencies that obey the law, and the limitations as defined by the Constitution of the United States?

I don't think anybody is suggesting curtailing all intelligence gathering, but even if they just cut the program back to deal with extranational phone calls, you're now spying far less on your own citizens, and are indeed spying in a way less likely to generate as many false positives and that are more easy to justify an express reason for.

I'm not suggesting that's a valid fix, because I still wouldn't find that acceptable, but definitely it is preferable to what we have now.