We are talking about nothing less than the bedrock of the fundamental trust of the American people in the institutions of their government. That trust been under siege for some time, for nigh-on 40 years, arguably since or even before the watershed moment of Watergate. But wounded and battered as it is, that trust has more-or-less survived.
The value of these surveillance programs is dwarfed by the damage they do to the fabric of American democracy. Maybe that sounds trite? I don't know. Few things are as important as trust between the government and the governed; a nation without that ephemeral link will not stand for long.
Hard to judge.
First of all, I think I've proven over the past several years that I'm not very good at predicting what will and will not constitute a huge scandal in the minds of the American public at large. I'm STILL baffled that people were surprised last year by a Republican saying poor people are lazy and want handouts.
On the one hand, I don't think the NSA scandal is foremost on most Americans' minds. The thing that's foremost on most Americans' minds is how little money and job security they have.
On the other hand, when you don't have very much money or job security, you're MORE likely to be upset by -- well, absolutely anything at all than if you're secure and generally worry-free.
Stross recently pointed out that economic conditions like the ones we're in are exactly the time the government most WANTS to impose a police state, because an angry populace in an economic downturn is a powderkeg.
Meantime, though, while Congress's approval rating is in the twenties, individual congresscritters' approval ratings among their constituents are in pretty good shape; retention is still pretty high. Hell, I'm no great fan of Sinema but if I don't vote for her the wrong lizard might get in.
The current generation of villains don't understand that; they believe, and this is what people actually believe, that the only action that one can personally benefit from is one that entails being a perfect cockwipe to somebody else.
I'll agree. There's a whole lot of "If there for it, then I'm against it, just to piss them off" going around.