What these massive spying "security" programs utterly lack is any accountability for their cost and wide reach. The monetary cost is huge, in the billions of dollars. The down-side is clear: spying on Americans, loss of privacy, loss of the 4th Amendment protection on a casual basis. (Don't lie to yourself that it is "just for foreigners". That much data gathered will be analyzed, whether it is legal or not.)
The gain is... what? Where is the objective third-party report showing direct links between the data gathered & analyzed to actual convictions of criminals? Yes, criminals- Terrorists are criminals, usually murderers or attempted murderers, no more than religiously or politically motivated hitmen. There is no clear justification, because these programs don't provide reports of their successes and certainly not of their failures. Sure, a small handful of Congress-critters get a summary report every few years touting the nebulous "success" of nothing happening. A report written by the people getting the money is going to be so self-serving as to be useless. A report that is so classified that no one who can actually criticize it with real facts and knowledge of the subject can ever see it is... no report at all. Do you really think Congress-critters who are so dumb they don't "believe" in evolution or climate change have a clue about any other part of reality, never mind highly technical matters? Congress-critters will always shovel money at what can be argued to "keep us safe", because that is the politically safe bet, even if there is no proof of cause and effect. It's the same mentality that gives billions of dollars to the TSA to x-ray shoes and throw out water bottles, but nothing to the real policework like the FBI (which has been proven to work in other countries). Bruce Schneier calls this "security theater", and it's not just expensive- it'd a waste of money that could be put to better use.
Where is the rigorous statistical analysis showing that these billions of dollars would not have been better spent on first responders hiring and training and equipment? Spent on more FBI agents working in the open to stop crime? Spent on better emergency room doctors and nurses, and on a wide range of other things that would be actually useful to our society in the event of any human-caused or natural disaster? That is what is missing from this discussion. The NSA has to prove that what they are doing is worth the cost, both in loss of rights as well as cost in dollars. The burden is on the agency, not on citizens. The high security classification guarantees so much secrecy that these questions will not be answered, so billions of dollars will keep flowing to the same people making these so-reassuring reports, down to a black hole in exchange for an illusion of security. Just like our privacy and our Constitutional rights. We deserve better.
My favorite Upton Sinclair quote can be modified to fit this diary: A government agency will never understand something when it's black budget depends upon not understanding it.