My biggest gripe with this whole thing is that people are arguing against straw men when complaining about the surveillance.
The way I see it: the fact that the NSA has all this unchecked power—and really, I think a lot of what is coming out in recent weeks is that they truly do have TOO much power—is problematic. We've got FAR too many citizens (ie plain Jane and Joe six-pack) with high-level clearances that do this stuff as a day-job. I'm not saying I'd prefer the Men In Black to be government personnel, but since 9/11 our military complex has taken on an entirely new face and meaning. We literally do not know how big our anti-terrorism and military industry is, and I don't mean "we" as in you and me, nobody fucking knows! As in, high-level government employees (and CIA and military dudes) can't piece together how big this industry is because it's so far-reaching and privatized.
As for the actual "them listening to our phones" stuff...really they're not listening to our phone-calls. One, because, presumably, you're not a dangerous terrorist. And two, the information they have from you isn't being mined for actual conversations as much as it is for who you've been calling and who's been calling you. Not like that isn't personal information, but, given that that's the real threat to a lot of people, I think it's worth mentioning loudly and often.
Really all of this does inject some fear in me. Again, not because I'm worried about my own personal security (or getting caught doing something the government could care less about), but because I worry about what it says about the society we're living in. We've very quietly crept into a world where all of this is not only technologically viable—holy shit! how crazy is it that they can do this stuff in the first place!?—but also LEGAL! While I think it's a little bit naive and reductionist to say "we never signed up for this," I'm kind of feeling like "yo, we never signed up for this!!!!"
That said, this technology and general approach has no doubt been a useful anti-terrorism tool and I can only applaud the work being done to actually squash legitimate threats. Anyways, I think, as of now at least, there's not much to be acutely afraid of (eg someone listening to your calls) but plenty to be extremely wary of more generally and into the future.
