[bediger4000]

Has there been any cost/benefit analysis on any of the spy programs that Snowden's leaks have revealed? It doesn't look like it to me. For instance, it should also be uncontroversial that universal surveillance only ends up with an intimidated, fearful citizenry, and a total lack of innovation, but oh well. For those reasons alone, we should probably start out against universal or dragnet surveillance.

[tptacek]

Wait, I don't understand how you can simultaneously believe that the NSA has actually built an apparatus of universal surveillance and that universal surveillance leads to an intimidated citizenry and total lack of innovation.

Which is it? Is the NSA restrained in their surveillance, or does surveillance not actually ruin innovation?