As Americans we tend to think we can, and should, have it all. We seldom face the reality that the freedom we enjoy comes with a very large price tag. Many thousands of very brave men and women sacrifice the comforts that we enjoy so that we may enjoy them. Some of them pay the ultimate price to maintain our freedom. The agencies within the Intelligence Community work very hard in support of these brave people, and perform many covert operations that continue to ensure our freedom. Very few of us ever get the opportunity to see this first hand, and are therefore quite skeptical of these actions. Having had that opportunity, I will gladly give up a small piece of my privacy to ensure the freedom of our country. I do wish that there was a better way to go about it, but I do not want to give up my freedom.

Sorry, I posted this before I signed in.
As Americans we tend to think we can, and should, have it all. We seldom face the reality that the freedom we enjoy comes with a very large price tag. Many thousands of very brave men and women sacrifice the comforts that we enjoy so that we may enjoy them. Some of them pay the ultimate price to maintain our freedom. The agencies within the Intelligence Community work very hard in support of these brave people, and perform many covert operations that continue to ensure our freedom. Very few of us ever get the opportunity to see this first hand, and are therefore quite skeptical of these actions. Having had that opportunity, I will gladly give up a small piece of my privacy to ensure the freedom of our country. I do wish that there was a better way to go about it, but I do not want to give up my freedom.

Erik your statements don't logically track. The main job of the intelligence services (NSA, CIA) is to gather information on which others can make decisions. Assuming decision makers knew all about the Holocaust, I doubt they would have done much about it. Look today at Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia.

As to the question of the legality of what the intelligence services do and what does the public have the right to know. And when someone tells the public, when are they a whistle-blower or a traitor. There is no real easy answer. Some people believe the public has the right to know everything. But that is impractical and foolish. We all have our secrets or private discussions that we don't want made public. Nor does the public have the right to know everything. How shocked are you about the amount of private information on various movie stars or public figures is being sold and published. How would you like it if they did the same to you.

On a national level we need to gather intelligence in order to make decisions. Hopefully good ones. In order to gather this information we need to use many methods, including physical and electronic spying. How we do it will always cause a conflict with individual rights. This is a constant balancing act.

As a final aside. Did you notice how quickly the uproar on the spying on foreign leaders phones died down. Probably because their intelligence services told them they were doing the same thing to us.

You have recruited a cadre of fellow long winds

Folks forget that Congress has a Committee to provide oversight on most of the so-called secret operations. The real issue concern abuse of power and abuse of information in that regard. Recall the after the fact disclosures of the files maintain by FBI director Hoover. Sunlight still provides the best disinfectant; where the sunlight shines and who gets to view its results go to how sensitive the data involved.

What is long-winded to some represents in-depth and quality to others :)