The surveillance state already has a tangible impact on political speech and the spread of ideas. Consider heated political banter between two individuals (who

The surveillance state already has a tangible impact on political speech and the spread of ideas. Consider heated political banter between two individuals (who know each other fairly well) in private: Person 1: "I really hate that Politician X lied about Y" Person 2: "Yeah, he really deserves to die." Person 2, though he's probably not thinking of killing Politician X, now has to think twice about saying this if it's over any wires. But the intent of the message is to express extreme hatred for political hypocrisy, not to actually kill anyone. The idea of destroying the government used to be a thing people could discuss in private, and while it rarely panned out to anything, it helped spread political ideas. Now if people say these things in private, they are at serious risk of being targeted by the NSA or other agencies that have access to their communications.