I'm mostly serious. There are two ideas that feel implicit in your statement: 1. Democracy only works if we have access to unmonitored electronic communication

I'm mostly serious. There are two ideas that feel implicit in your statement: 1. Democracy only works if we have access to unmonitored electronic communications, which doesn't really stand up because democracy predates electronic media. and/or 2. When people know they are being monitored, there is a profound chilling effect around politically important speech. That hasn't exactly been proven. If anything, I've seen more expression of free thoughts since the NSA stories broke.