So, the big lie Snowden told is an important one

[Maedhros]

298. I don't take away the same points from the Guardian's analysis that you do

The way I read it, there are safeguards that are theoretically in place, but the implementation of those safeguards is flawed. That, to me, is the issue. Of course they are going to design a program that appears to have the proper checks and balances, but as Greenwald and others have argued, those checks and balances are more of a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" brand of oversight. Other former intelligence analysts have corroborated this assertion.

In my opinion, the entire idea of a secret court is antithetical to democracy. I honestly do not believe that the Al Qaeda threat is so overwhelmingly insidious that we have to resort to such measures. To ramp up the intensity and scope of the surveillance by orders (plural!) of magnitude is unwarranted; cloaking all of the decision making behind a wall of secrecy makes the program more insidious than the threat we are allegedly countering.