I am vacillating.
Fundamentally, I have a great deal of sympathy for the security services, understand the difficulty of the job that they have been tasked with, and can see no other reasonable way of achieving the goals that they have been set. However, my opinion flips and flops back and forth as I read each new revelation, get caught up in the moral outrage of the crowd, write something incendiary and provocative, then sit back, think a bit, and regret (maybe) being so rash.
But then again ... I understand all too well the tremendously vulnerable situation that the general population is in with respect to the state, and comprehend the risk of abuse, not so much from individual analysts or the current administration as much as from the opportunistic acts of a future administration.
But then again ... It is foolish to expect answers to come easily when the questions themselves are so difficult, so it is natural to strike out in the wrong direction a few times before finding a good path.
As a former member of the diplomatic community living in the US, I am (now as then) almost certain that the NSA were recording all of my telephone calls and internet browsing activity, as well as bugging the apartment in which we lived. It did not then and does not now stop me from browsing for kinky porn, having massive stand-up arguments with my wife, and emailing the Samaritans about wanting to commit suicide. (TMI, I know, sorry - but they can only hold something over your head if you want to keep it a secret).
I chose not to care then, and I have to continue choosing not to care. (Not a decision one can undo easily, anyway). Living in a glass goldfish bowl or not, life goes on; and perhaps the best (or least worst) thing that can come out of all of this is that we become a little bit more honest about human imperfection and fallibility - I do not think that I am alone in being an imperfect, flawed human being.
Perhaps if we stopped pretending to be perfect (or at least not-as-deranged-as-we-really-are) we would be somewhat less vulnerable to those who would seek to exploit the information imbalance.
So, I guess I do not care about them invading my privacy, because that boat sailed a long time ago. I do care in principle about them invading everybody's privacy, because of hypothetical future abuses. I think that at least some of the potential for abuse can be blunted by being more open and honest with ourselves, and by coming to terms with our own failings rather than trying to hide them.