I'd say mass-surveillance (dragnet as you say) is always a bad thing, making distinctions based on the location of people isn't much protection since they alrea

I'd say mass-surveillance (dragnet as you say) is always a bad thing, making distinctions based on the location of people isn't much protection since they already have a way around it: we do it to your people, you do it to us and we can "share" intel. My personal take from the whole Snowden saga was the degree of collusion with "do no evil" tech corporations, something which their PR teams have obviously effectively suppressed.