"I appreciate that, "history ignored is destined to repeat itself". However, people could simply shut their yaps once in a while, and post less of their personal problems, political beliefs, and manifestos on "Facebook".
if only that was the only information the NSA has. But as far as social networking alone goes you have a point.
"All things being considered, a lot of the surveillance being done is pointless, as well as yielding worthless results. At some point, the outrage should shift to amount of tax dollars being wasted on it."
Actually, many of these NSA programs ran right through the recession. Even increased if I'm not mistaken.
"And with that said, you can't determine which information is wasted tax dollars, until you gather it. Now there's the real conundrum."
If it's something most people become aware of and oppose, it's probably wasted tax dollars. To have ONE entity have all that information, ONE entity to have all that knowledge, ONE ring to rule them.... sorry. But seriously there's no reason the NSA should NEED all this information. It's too much of a temptation especially for someone who might know how to take it without asking like snowden, but worse. Seeing as this isn't technically illegal yet you have to admit it would be hard to get public attention on the matter when you'll just get tried and labeled as a traitor instead. Especially when the government hides this from the public in the first place. We shouldn't need a controversial person like Snowden to expose something like this anyways....
There's no reason the government should have this level of information on so much. It can easily become more of a liability than anything and snowden is proving that.
I sure hope the NSA is better protected in cyber world than the FBI.
