Why sympathize with them? Because you would undoubtedly appreciate me second-guessing decisions you made in complex, nuanced situations to which I was not a party, just as much as they likely appreciate the way you've reduced their dilemma to a ridiculously over-simplified, cut-and-dry model of reality that is no more fair than it is accurate. That's why. Don't excoriate these people based on your assumptions.

Do we currently have the ideal balance between the need to protect our citizens and national interests, and the need to protect the rights of our citizens that our Constitution guarantees? Hell no, we obviously don't have it. Is that something most NSA employees have control over? No. You may be the one who is deluded if you think someone can just raise their hand at the NSA and say, what?, "I think we should re-think how we're doing business, because we might be infringing on the rights of everyday Americans." It's a bureaucracy. To address these issues, we need to be suggesting solutions instead of perpetually yelling at each other like opposing fans at a football game.

I don't want to live in a panopticon anymore than you do. My point is that we don't live in a perfect world, and that none of us are perfect (I hold myself up as a prime example). We need to recognize the difficult situation we've put the people who serve our country through the intelligence community; we've asked them to protect us from our enemies, but we expect them to accomplish their mission without encroaching on our privacy or violating our rights. And WE SHOULD expect them to do both; that's the nature of the job. I'm just pointing out that we should recognize and acknowledge the position this puts them in and stop demonizing them. It's counter-productive at best.

I do not accept that all of the communications of every American must be surveilled and stored in order to accomplish the mission. We need to find the right balance between security and citizens' rights. But that's not something that can be accomplished by software engineers at the NSA, nor even by the head of the NSA. We need to elect political leaders who we trust to work towards finding that balance. And we need to recognize that not only will it be an uphill battle, but a long one: we will always struggle to find the right balance between privacy and security. It's been going on since the Declaration of Independence, and I'd bet my money it'll still be going on at the quinticentennial.