The problem with secret executive orders, secret courts, secret decisions, secret rulings, secret spying, secret actions taken as the result of the spying -- is

The problem with secret executive orders, secret courts, secret decisions, secret rulings, secret spying, secret actions taken as the result of the spying -- is that the public, and elected officials, don't know what the hell is going on. A closed society is one where paranoia is both frequent and justified. Dictators spy on their opponents, execute them, and quickly imagine new enemies. Eventually no one trusts anyone. I would suggest that the best way to understand what is going on is to imagine that, but rather than a single individual as dictator, instead a large group of individuals suffering from fear & paranoia. When we think that the NSA is spying on terrorists, then we assume that the NSA is using judgement and discretion, focusing on a narrow vertical of individuals. That is certainly what I believed in the past. When it is disclosed that it goes far beyond terrorists, collects deep meta data on the entire US population while logging all electronic communication on a group of a million or so, our imaginations run wild -- and justifiably so.