>But it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that people are just now discovering that NSA was breaking into computers around the world. That is literally the charter of the NSA. It's why they exist at all.
You're presenting a red herring here, tptacek. Any third grader who played played Splinter Cell would say, "No duh!" But the news isn't that the NSA is breaking into computers. The news is the scope of the intrusions (installing malware on 50k computers), and of the motivations for the behavior. We've been told it's to protect us from the extremist muslims attempting to establish a caliphate here in America [1]. That was a lie. 50k computers with US-planted malware on them is not a defensive maneuver. It's an offensive one. It's not about protecting America. It's about global information dominance.
Now, whether we want that or not is a different question; there are advantages and disadvantages to the issue depending to a large degree on whether or not you believe in American exceptionalism. But this is about an executive power grab, not about "spies spy, let's all go home now," and you're deluding yourself if you believe otherwise.
[1] http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/speeches_testimonies/T...