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I made it to the second paragraph. Anyone who believes the NSA can be controlled must also believe in the things they were told in school how the world works. That is, 100% "how it could work in theory". In reality, the world is controlled by power hungry psychopaths and they are concentrated in large amounts at the top of these organizations.

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You're probably right, but do you not agree that declaring PRISM illegal would be a helpful step?

I believe he's trying to say that it's just impossible. In movies heroes uncover government conspiracies and culprits get handcuffed. In real world nothing happened. Snowden is now a cultural reference for comedy:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6663582/

In the real world, whistleblowers and their lawyers get prosecuted for revealing illegal activities the government was conducting:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-28/australian-spys-lawyer...

In the real world, heroes get handcuffed - see the excellent documentary about US government whistleblowers Silenced (2014)

Yes but what are the chances of that happening when it's a case involving a man accused of supporting terrorists? This is exactly the purpose of the program, so there won't be much of an argument there. If anything this will set a precedent and cement over the program's 'usefulness'.

The question is why did they have to wait for the program to actually catch someone supporting terrorism before taking it to court?

Well, guess that's it; we might as well give up then.

Negative thoughts detected! Your comment is now being run through a text pattern recognizer to tie it up with your Facebook and your email account. God forbid you might have a stray creative thought somewhere ever, that may threaten our precious democracies.

Have a nice life.

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