To believe or not to

That is the question most Americans should be asking in light of recent assertions that spying on domestic phones has averted "dozens" of attacks here and abroad.  My reaction to that particular bit of hubris is "Show me what you have been doing in my name".  If we want to preserve the fig leaf of participatory democracy, then we should have a more open discussion about how we the people go about protecting ourselves.  Spending billions of dollars on mining the phone calls of ordinary people and building a huge database which will soon be able to tell the NSA what you gave your niece for her baby shower is not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.  Besides, most of us have already agreed to confide our daily agendas free of charge.  If the death of privacy must come, let's recruit thousands of teenagers to monitor Facebook and Youtube.  It would be cheaper and probably more thorough.