> If domestic spying is what the people wants then congress needs to act on that. And they have, repeatedly. For all their bluster, the legislation that they'

> If domestic spying is what the people wants then congress needs to act on that. And they have, repeatedly. For all their bluster, the legislation that they've passed immunized the corporations who participated, left standing the punishment against Qwest (who didn't), and created new avenues to collect information in secret. They held no one from either the Bush or Obama administrations, both of whom supported such programs, to account. Congress did approve, modulo some theatrics, the actions of those administrations, because it's what people, that is, their constituents wanted. > NSA is a traitor to the American public. This kind of rhetoric when people didn't do what you personally wanted, but which much of the public did, isn't helpful and is a large portion of why the current politics are so toxic. As far as anyone has been able to document, the NSA largely spends their time fighting terrorist organizations and hacking other nation-states -- doing things that legitimately keep safe Americans, in a world that isn't all that nice of a place. It's trite to snipe at how the guards do their job, safe under their watch and without anything at risk -- particularly when you're also safely the minority, so don't run the risk of your opinions being put into action. > can't even begin to imagine how blackmail will be used to silently and invisibly form the political landscape for the next 50 years Good, I'm tired of lizard people. Also, "Hoover-esque" comes to mind. Of course, the real danger for your conspiracy is the private consultancies and large corporations, which have considerably better access to information and substantially more sophisticated systems. I'm personally considerably less worried about the NSA (or other government) archives and systems than the privateer ones, particularly in the age of rogue billionaires with aspirations of nation building -- to the point I'm willing to risk it to enable the nation to defend itself from, eg, another 2016-style PSYOP campaign.