I think we are missing the fundamental issue here. What do "we the people" want? Do we want the government to seek out and exploit every possible loophole it c

I think we are missing the fundamental issue here. What do "we the people" want? Do we want the government to seek out and exploit every possible loophole it can find and to make up excuses to eavesdrop on us? Or do we want to make sure that gentlemen don't read each others letters? I would very much prefer the latter. State the law as "if you are a public servant, don't listen to the conversation of people - don't even think about or try to listen - unless you have a very specific reason to do otherwise and then only if you must". "They", the government, are the people having guns and the authority to lock you up. Once we get used to the idea that "they are listening" whenever they want ... we will start to self censor what we say and very shortly thereafter what we do and think. You don't want to be the one sticking out, you don't want to catch their attention. And that is when we have killed creativity, stopped future development of society and made the entrepreneurs walk in the line at the same pace as everyone else. The quest for privacy is not about protecting the fact that I like to watch videos of midgets dressed up in leather underwear or my protecting friend who is ordering weed online. It is about the future of our society.