>"Hey, you guys need to stop sabotaging crypto standards, forcing tech companies to hand over data, and threatening them with prison if they talk. Stick with

>"Hey, you guys need to stop sabotaging crypto standards, forcing tech companies to hand over data, and threatening them with prison if they talk. Stick with the technical prowess stuff you're supposed to be doing." This is really a key point that can't be emphasized enough. Anyone who was paying attention in the 1990s knew that the NSA has a significant technological advantage over the U.S. private sector and the rest of the world, but even pretty serious civil libertarians were not concerned, because there was no possibility of dragnet spying on today's scale, and because most of us assumed -- rightly or wrongly -- that the NSA was for the most part keeping out of domestic affairs and politics (funding issues aside). Now, it's abundantly clear that the NSA not only has inserted itself deeply into our political process, routinely cooperates with domestic law enforcement, bullies, coerces, and co-opts U.S. industry, and very likely spies on politicians and activist groups. For anyone who has studied modern history, this sets off major alarm bells. I keep hearing "what's changed" from NSA stalwart defendants. My answer: everything.