Congress hasn't declared war on the countries - the majority of them are our allies - but without asking for public permission, NSA is running network operations against them that affect millions of innocent people. And for what? So we can have secret access to a computer in a country we're not even fighting?

US has to be able to rely on a safe and interconnected internet in order to compete with other countries.

The issue I brought forward most clearly was that of mass surveillance, not of surveillance in general.

There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.

When governments go too far to punish people for actions that are dissent rather than a real threat to the nation, they risk delegitimizing not just their systems of justice, but the legitimacy of the government itself. Because when they bring political charges against people for acts that were clearly at least intended to work in the public interest, they deny them the opportunity to mount a public-interest defense.

The authoritarian one believed that an individual's rights were basically provided by governments and were determined by states. The other society - ours - tended to believe that a large portion of our rights were inherent and couldn't be abrogated by governments, even if this seemed necessary.

It's becoming less and less the National Security Agency and more and more the national surveillance agency. It's gaining more offensive powers with each passing year.