[ktd]

To be honest if you think there is any chance at all that this would happen you are completely disconnected from reality.

The average person doesn't care about NSA surveillance-- just as the average person didn't care about Lincoln arresting newspaper editors and suspending habeas corpus, FDR putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, J. Edgar Hoover sending agents to spy on and harass suspected communists (or just people he didn't like), George W. Bush locking up terrorists in Guantanamo, etc.

When you get right down to it, historical precedent strongly indicates that the average person does not care whether the government actually respects the law in its pursuit of national security.

[malandrew]

Never said it would actually happen. Just said I would love it if it did.