The NSA said they prevented 54 attacks but it was widely reported supported by evidence that that was not the case. Not to mention that they repeatedly lied to Congress. If you trust these organizations so much, good for you. But this bogeyman of "terrorism, drug dealers" is not acceptable by most people who understand this. The probability of me getting killed just randomly on the street is far far higher than me getting killed in a terrorist attack in the US. Statistics are important. Why should the government go overboard to prevent this? Have you realized that gun violence in the US for example causes more deaths than all terrorism attacks combined? And yet even a slight mention of this has gun lovers cry about how their second amendment is being violated. Let's not forget that there is a fourth amendment also:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

There is a reason that democracies around the world don't allow police to just randomly walk into your house and arrest you. A good reason.

Just because terrorism has to be prevented, doesn't mean that our basic rights have to be violated. By that logic, let's go even further and install CCTV cameras and microphones in everyone's homes. All crimes can be prevented. And perhaps the next step can be to have thought control devices even.

We don't make things "easy" for law enforcement on purpose. Search warrants, constitutional rights, due process, and even the adversarial system more broadly are all designed to make things more difficult for them at a fundamental level. Empowering a bunch of Judge Dredd wannabes would make things far easier than the status quo. Oddly enough, we don't pursue such options.

As for the assertions about terrorists moving to other communication methods, that horse already bolted years ago. Osama Bin Laden's reliance on a hand courier made that crystal clear. They've known that their communications were at risk for years now. In that sense, the Snowden leaks revealed nothing new to terrorists.

It was widely reported that OBL had removed all forms of communication from his compound well before the leaks as he was fairly certain that they were all being monitored anyway. A serious terrorist wouldn't be using an unencrypted communication method to start with anyway.

And if op's were at risk they'd have made arrests immediately or D Noticed the Guardian immediately. As they haven't, it's probably a load of shit.

A claim that they don't monitor that which they don't need to for safety seems unsupported? As in, it seems to me like you are saying something roughly analogous to "they said that it is neccesary, so we should let them do it"

I would think "we only do it to the extent neccesary" would be what an argument is meant to show, not the argument itself.

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I am going to make an assumption that any 'terrorist' that plans their next attack through facebook or gmail is more of a threat to killing themselves by a bomb backfiring, than to the public.

Mass surveillance is not the solution.

Also, their claim that 'they operate fully within the law' is just a claim without any public evidence to back it up, if all three of them were subject to a polygraph during this then I might take it a bit more seriously. Otherwise, why should I be inclined to trust the words of a organisation that clearly does not trust me?

Wow, are you an astroturfer, or do you actually believe everything your Government tells you?