Do you consider alarm over the extent of government surveillance to be a paranoid conspiracy theory?

[moondust]

13. Probably some overreaction.

Even a really nosy NSA worker is unlikely to spend much time going through repetitive, humdrum, personal phone calls or e-mails BECAUSE THERE IS NO INCENTIVE OR REWARD FOR WASTING TIME LIKE THAT--especially if properly supervised. It would get old pretty fast. Many NSA employees would probably find generalized "spying on Americans" revolting because they wouldn't want it done to them.

A legitimate concern is using someone's private phone or e-mail data against them as leverage for political or other reasons. I'm not aware of anybody claiming to be a victim of that yet.

My own concern is the possibility of the unscrupulous party of Nixon someday gaining sufficient operational control and trying to use NSA information to their political advantage, or finding a way to profit from it by selling it or something.