Hundreds of millions is a bit more tolerable than an entire planet. I'd like to also point out I agree with you - none of my statements here should be interpret

Hundreds of millions is a bit more tolerable than an entire planet. I'd like to also point out I agree with you - none of my statements here should be interpreted as support for the NSA's excesses. Rather, my incentive is to: 1) Prevent people on the forum from using it as a buzzword to make points devoid of strong, reasoned arguments, 2) Prevent people from believing the NSA should be burned to the ground and disbanded entirely, when it does serve a very useful purpose. Historically, there have been far worse totalitarian measures. To give one that is relevant to privacy and this particular issue: consider that in the KGB, the secret police could raid your home at any time without a warrant, and when you picked up the phone an operator immediately told you what you said would be recorded. Oh, sure you knew about it. That makes it so much better, I suppose, even though it was far more reaching than what the NSA is currently doing. I want it very well understood that while the excesses of the agency should be corrected, and Americans should be entitled to privacy, we can't allow ourselves to just attack things passionately because the NSA scandal tells us to. That, and we should maintain a historical perspective so we understand how bad things are and we don't freak out as if it's the worst thing ever, when far worse things have happened in previous generations. A level of outrage is appropriate - losing sensibility in debates is not.