I'd be angry if NSA didn't spy on foreign militaries. Foreign heads of state, to the extent that they control their militaries, are members of militaries. Spy

I'd be angry if NSA didn't spy on foreign militaries. Foreign heads of state, to the extent that they control their militaries, are members of militaries. Spying on US persons (except intelligence community people, for counterintelligence purposes) should be out. Counterterrorism involving US persons should be law enforcement. I might change my mind if real domestic-origin NBC threats were a thing, but as far as I can tell, they are not. Spying on foreign civilian arms vendors, maybe some key infrastructure, etc. is ok if it is done in a very limited way -- pure open source intelligence (monitoring public information, usually published by the target, and voluntary reports from people) is probably reasonable. Spying on purely-private, non-threatening non-US-persons is bad for two reasons. At some level, it's immoral directly -- there is a human right to privacy at some level. As well, it's a total waste of resources -- if NSA has the resources to spy on a private Brazilian citizen who is cheating on his wife, the NSA has too many resources, either more properly used for other governmental purposes or returned to the taxpayers.