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Ginormous post on this issue... from more Snowden/Glennworld leakage?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-broke-privacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-audit-finds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html?hpid=z1

This blurb is interesting:

The Washington Post's article detailing the fourth amendment abuses by the NSA got some push back from the administration who attempted to "edit" the article before publication. The internal audit referenced in the article was obtained by the WaPo from Edward Snowden. The details of the audit indicated repeated and growing privacy violations by the NSA, violations which included obtaining thousands of American citizen's communications records and using methods of information collection that were later deemed unconstitutional by a court.
The Post was able to interview John Delong, NSA director of compliance for the article and they were initially informed "DeLong and members of the NSA communications staff said he could be quoted 'by name and title' on some of his answers after an unspecified internal review." However, the WH subsequently changed their minds. The Washington Post included the following statement with their article:

The Obama administration referred all questions for this article to John DeLong, the NSA’s director of compliance, who answered questions freely in a 90-minute interview. DeLong and members of the NSA communications staff said he could be quoted “by name and title” on some of his answers after an unspecified internal review. The Post said it would not permit the editing of quotes. Two days later, White House and NSA spokesmen said that none of DeLong’s comments could be quoted on the record and sent instead a prepared statement in his name. The Post declines to accept the substitute language as quotations from DeLong.

Good for the Post for sticking to their story.

Hopes this pressures Congress to get off their tush and perform some serious oversights...

But so many people are okay with it "because it protects us".

 d-usa wrote:
But so many people are okay with it "because it protects us".

I'm still not sure how to feel about it myself. I've always had a hard time determining where to draw the line when it comes to privacy over safety.

But if laws were broken, even in the interests of safety, we should go after it just like we would anything else.

 d-usa wrote:
But so many people are okay with it "because it protects us".

That's the argument.

It's the Goldielock Syndrome eh? How much "surveillance" is Just Right(TM)??

Well I see a great way to cut back on our budget! Completely defund the NSA, destroy their servers, fire their personnel and salt the earth around their buildings on Fort Meade. Then every turn and glare at the CIA and FBI to make sure they get the goddamn point.

People should write to their representative to demand action on the NSA situation.

After we defund the ACA.

Priorities are important.

Actually what was explain to us as I was popping smoke out the US Army. Your email/cell/whatever (Facebook) connection you have that can be monitored is triggered if you are contacted by known members or organizations that are pro terrorism or what/whoever is on the government list. Other then that your "personnel info" is not (supposedly) looked at.
Your IP/Cell number has a red flag thrown on it for further review. Reverse would be if you start looking at extremist/terrorist web pages. Question was asked what about those of us who do diorama's or modeling. Example would be looking up Waffen SS units, typical wear of insurgents via their websites, or any other means of research one conducts to complete a project. The flag thrown on it is how often you look. Unlike one call from a "suspected" source that would throw the flag up.
Not sure if you all remember the incidents we were having when the insurgents acquired our cell numbers via Roshan or God knows where in 2010 when they started calling our home phones and informing whoever answered that their love ones were dead. Recently we had a rash of personal cell calls from the Middle East to.

The NSA has grossly overstepped their bounds