Very well said. I believe the bottom line for any nation regardless of their intelligence apparatus is to act on their own self interest in preserving the stat

Very well said. I believe the bottom line for any nation regardless of their intelligence apparatus is to act on their own self interest in preserving the state. Every nation with a vested interest is involved in spying internationally, and although all these nations also have vast domestic intelligence operations, I believe that some nations are more actively focused on gathering information on their own citizens for specific purposes than others. I can only speak from my opinions and what I've read, but it is my belief that the NSA is more of the former, interested more in international affairs while still maintaining a catch-all domestic program with the intention of gathering as many intelligence signals as possible, though not actively pursuing 98% of what's been gathered. Granted, if they wanted to take action against an individual they damn well have the capacity, but I don't think this is their primary objective. I do believe genuinely that "preventing terrorism" is one of their aims (or at least giving the state the resources to do so), but obviously the tools that are being used to fulfill these goal are taken to their logical extent and ping everyone instead of "the bad guys". When I look at other nations and see very obvious programs of state-sponsored espionage (China's Unit 61398, for example) I wonder how far the United States would eventually fall behind in the game if they don't keep pace with other nations. The NSA's operations have less to do with corporate espionage (as far as anyone can tell) or political dissent (somewhat), but cyber warfare is a very real threat and having the capacity to monitor that threat and actively work against it is a power I hope the agency doesn't lose. I hear and accept the argument of intelligence powers being used to ultimately instill tyranny, and I grapple with reasoning defense of the state's interests vs. living under tyranny (not to mention protecting my own self interests), but I don't know if we are realistically at that point yet and I still would argue that there is an importance to letting the state manage its own affairs. That is a flawed argument obviously but that is one of the reason I wanted to hash out the topics in my initial question. I agree that the next few years will present a privacy arms race in the private sector and I hope those technologies would be able to combat the over-reach of any agency with intelligence gathering capabilities but I hesitate to believe it will hamper these agencies abilities to monitor and track individuals. I hope I'm wrong, but the cat and mouse game of technological advancement will continue unabated, and as long as the USA continues to spend more than half a trillion dollars annually on defense the resources will always be available to break or hinder those advancements. We can only hope the individuals at the helm of these new technologies can stand against encroaching influence and money.