Of all the people I would expect to be following the rules (even the "stupid" ones), it would be actual employees of the government and military itself. Once t

Of all the people I would expect to be following the rules (even the "stupid" ones), it would be actual employees of the government and military itself. Once the military decides that they get to ignore laws which are silly, they will decide they can ignore laws which are unenforceable in practice, and then the Republic will fall. You either have a culture of civilian control of the military, and a nation of laws, or you don't. The Church Committee is what resulted from the last time the Intelligence Community decided that laws are silly; is that what you want to go back to? Before you answer, keep in mind that the NSA was actually following the laws this time, so the situation as you see it post-Snowden could easily have been far worse.