Sorry, but if you insist on this absolutist purity, which means thousands could be killed because we won't do any listening because we had no probable cause to justify that listening, then you are going to have very, very few Americans on your side.
+1 No one cares about spying on other countries, but it is wrong in every way to be spying on us.. which is why it was kept secret. Compromise is an extremely dumb suggestion to throw out there, the govt overstepped its authority in a big way to "keep us safe" while taking away our birthrights, which is way more dangerous than backward ass muslim zealots could ever be.
Some enemies reside on US soil, they may even be citizens. If they're plotting something really big, something we very much want to prevent, how do we catch them before they "pull the trigger"?
dead wrong. the technology to kill people hasn't changed all that much in the last 60-70 years and mass destruction has been possible all that time. To say that, now, we must give up our rights to stay safe is just an irrational position (a lie) so that our big brother govt can assume more authority because they are doing such a good job with the power they have already illegitimately taken. please. The bigger it gets the more intrusive, oppressive and wasteful it gets, and the excuse for failure is always "we don't have enough money". corruption is rampant, and there is zero accountability for bureaucrats who can't even be voted out.
the same way we did it before the nsa big brother project. you're a slave minded weakling if you think we should spy on everyone to make sure no one does anything wrong, it goes against the whole concept of our legal system which is "innocent until proven guilty". ps: and it isn't foolproof, the tsarnaev example is too perfect to ignore. btw if the govt is so concerned for our safety, why don't they seal our southern border where MILLIONS of illegal, undocumented aliens have crossed into our country.
A complicating factor is scale, and that technology is enabling individuals to do bigger crimes. So while it seems sensible and legal to not listen close enough to catch some disgruntled employee who wants to shoot his boss, it does not make sense to not listen close enough to catch the guy who wants to blow up an entire building full of people.
this is some weak rationale ricter. first, again the tech to blow up buildings existed long before the nsa domestic spy program (tim mcveigh). second, what if someone makes a remark in private that they don't even mean, does that allow the govt to investigate or arrest this individual? And that's where it really becomes the thought police and I would NEVER live like that, i suspect millions of other Americans feel the same way. Third, we pay a huge amount of police forces to investigate things like this, so maybe they prevent it maybe they don't, but we don't all give up our privacy so they can "keep us safe".. nothing is perfect, but even with their new spy programs and dhs, fbi etc, it was still the public that identified and located tsarnaev. lol
After Oklahoma it became the norm for law enforcement to track large purchases of ammonium nitrate. Is that an acceptable loss of freedom, in your opinion? I agree, nothing is perfect, and "listening" can become too intrusive.