[jdonaldson]

It's pretty faint praise if you have to argue that a lot of what <insert name> does is good. It's like listening to someone in an abusive relationship.

They have willfully violated privacy expectations of individuals and corporations, and they seem to have enjoyed doing it (the slide deck showing how they sniff google data comes to mind).

They do have a big job to do, but "protecting the US as an entity" is not a risk to the extent you imply. Even additional terrorist attacks on the scale of 9/11 are not going to threaten the future of our country. Furthermore, even in the presence of such pervasive surveillance by the NSA, we are still vulnerable to attacks of terrorism, such as the Boston Marathon bombings. The American citizen is not really any safer than before, and in fact is more vulnerable to abuse by those with access to sensitive personal data.

What's happening now is in fact a good deal of logical thought. The question is whether the NSA's operations need to be severely curtailed and/or monitored.

Finally, if you're looking for the scared-mode people, I would suggest looking to the individuals who have put their personal freedoms at stake to try and bring evidence of wrong-doing to light.

[Bahamut]

On the contrary, it is the risk I imply/have stated. I don't work in intelligence, but I am an infantry Marine reservist - some of the tactics briefed to us on how foreign governments and terrorists try to compromise opsec might surprise many, including using Facebook to try to determine troop movements. Our enemies are also sophisticated.

It's just not as simple as you have stated so far. I'm not making an absolute claim that the NSA did not violate privacy or such - I was primarily pointing out some of the complexities involved here that privacy advocates tend to forget, especially when considering the history of foreign intelligence gathering, where privacy is not guaranteed by any nation because such a guarantee cannot be backed.