I fear that you're mixing up Snowden's worst case scenarios of what could happen if the NSA and others broke all the rules, with what was and is legal under laws passed by Congress.

Yes, some courts have found some of those laws and activities unconstitutional. And that is a problem. There was too little oversight by Congress, and the laws were written too broadly.

But the laws and activities have been tweaked - they haven't been on the whole stopped.

Doesn't that mean that the scaremongering by Snowden and others was incorrect? Doesn't that mean that, on the whole, the activities aren't "illegal". Doesn't that indicate that our democratically elected officials are working within our Constitutional system?

Doesn't that mean that these are activities that are not inconsistent with our democratic traditions?

I get that lots and lots of people don't like that the NSA can have phone companies store every bit of metadata on our communications for N years (I seem to recall that periods of 3-5 years were mentioned in the debate, but I cannot find that number in the final bill) and can gain access to it with a specific warrant from a specific court.

The NSA's job is not to spy on US persons. It's outside their mandate. It's a distraction for the people there to have to sort through masses of US person's data. They don't want to do that.

There are people in the US who have their rights violated every day by over-zealous cops who don't have access to communications metadata. There are people whose lives are ruined by bad data in private credit reports, bad data and bad "science" in private software used to decide sentencing, and so forth. Compare that to how the NSA revelations have affected your real life...

Yes, we need to watch the watchers. But let's not construct some Stasi State out of shadows and fears that have little basis in reality.

Finally, if [generic] you do believe that there's a Deep State controlling too much in the US, what do you think people should do about it? Or more specifically, what should they do about it that is consistent with our "democratic traditions"? Abolishing the NSA won't help because their mandate is outside the US. Abolishing the FBI? The DOJ? Who would do their other work? Who would investigate the black hats that really are trying to steal all your information in hopes of blackmailing [generic] you, stealing all your money, and worse? Etc.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.