The reality is that virtually all western democracies, the US included have constitution protection against unreasonable search for thier citizens.  Any government or company violating those rights is violating those laws.  There are exceptions, such as when a court order is produced for a suspect for which there is reasonable grounds.  It is doubtful that much of the spying in this case would standup in a court of law.

The carte blanche spying of the US of late is both unconstitutional and very worrying. That so many people are jumping to defend this type of conduct is even more so.  Nothing good can or will come from this sort of mass intrusion.

America were obviously paranoid in the cold war. Why else would McCarthy's red scare have have happened (which was really a witch hunt)? If America weren't paranoid. Also, why did they start 2 proxy wars in this time? And back Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? For some reason or another, America tried to save people from "communism" (USSR and China and all the other countries that were supposedly going communist were authoritarian dictatorships not really communists). But the way i see it is that America is just the biggest hypocrites out there. They work with someone when it's in their interests and then backstab them when they finish with the other enemy. Like how the US and USSR were close allies in WW2 until the Nazis were crushed and then suddenly the 2 superpowers hate each other most likely because of nuclear weapons. Finally, how is the USA and it's allies any better than any "communist" country? They don't kill their own citizens but they certaintly kill other countrie's citizens. Millions unnecessarily killed and maimed in Vietnam and Korea. Neither side is any better than the other.

I know we the west don't like the Taliban but what right did we have to go there? Very little has been achieved in the last 10 years. I mean they still exist in there 1000's don't they? And it's like we never learn either. NO ONE has defeated Afghanistan yet and that hasn't changed with the latest war. No one should went back in 1979, just as they shouldn't be there now. There probably would be no Taliban if it weren't for the Soviets or America. But yeah, since 9/11 the US has gotten tougher on allowing immigrants legally in to the country. They even search tourists for bombs at the airport. It's a bit much.

As for the last paragraph, yeah most people are too selfish and ignorant to run themselves. Only a small minority of people these days can work together and make it work without government.  "when the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace"- Jimi Hendrix. Somehow, i feel the native tribal peoples had it right all along. They were self-reliant, hard working, selfless people who were also sustainable. Then the Europeans came along and we all know what happened after that.

But for now, all i expect the government (i'm talking about the UK here) to do is be open with us and provide a "safety net" of healthcare, education and welfare. I don't except them taking bribes from lobbyists, spreading lies and spying on us while keeping the country backwards because of their retarded ideology which has proven not to work before. They are supposed to represent us and yet the current lot seem to be the most out of touch ever. Finally, why should I be proud of MI5? They just kill people with drones all day long. 

I would like to see them trying to do that with the plane of president putin. 

So, anybody that is adamant about their civil liberties is a friggin troll?  

A number of mainstream media have confirmed that the govmnt is able to coerce these american companies into supplying information, either passively through bulk release of data or for select people.  

Also, at least some companies like google are starting to encrypt their data, so that the government won't be able to spy on us.  And that is totally fair.  

Hopefully, MSFT will soon do the same thing, but until that happens, i'm going to use a non US-based email, out of principle at the very least.

Okay, we know you love Google for whatever reason, but praising Google for their dataprotection? Come on now.

Well, the official US "terrorist watch list" has about 875.000 people, so they're not far from "millions". They may have already reached the million, for 875.000 was just the latest published number. And back in 2011, it was still about 400.000, so that list is growing very fast.

But what many people seem to forget is that it's not just the actual suspects who are being surveilled, since they are allowed to surveil "two or three" layers of contacts of the suspect (according to NSA-director Jon C. Inglis). For example, imagine Facebook user X is being considered a suspect, for whatever reason. Then they are not just allowed to surveil user X, but also all friends/contacts of user X (layer 1), all contacts of contacts of user X (layer 2), and apparently at least in some cases even all contacts of contacts of contacts of user X (layer 3).