Re: General Principles
"The United States is no longer a normal civilized democracy. People, including U.S. Citizens, can be whisked off by the government to Guantanamo without due process and held there indefinitely, while any incriminating documents are somehow "lost."
"The NSA believes it is acceptable to spy on anyone in the world, including its own citizens, also without probable cause, warrants, or due process - yet hypocritically, along with Great Britain, believes the alleged "right" to collect any and all information, secretly, and keep it indefinitely, should be reserved only for "democracies" that would never DREAM of abusing it.
"Of course, thanks to the many holes in their systems, and the numerous leaks, no agency such as the NSA can give credible assurances that vulnerabilities haven't been designed into its equipment - even if the threat may still be overblown at present because of the technical difficulty of not getting caught (thanks to whistleblowers such as Snowden).
"In the future, though, much more insidious vulnerabilities and abuses of legal and democratic processes and human rights may be possible."
There - fixed that for you.