True.

The "Us-vs-Them" rhetoric directly feeds our pack-animal drive for tribalism, from which nothing good ever emerged.

However, it does make for some amusing rabble-rousing.

Now that the rabble has been roused, so to speak, we need to move the debate onto a more mature phase:

1. We need to work out how to live our lives in a state of total surveillance - when our lives are transparent not only to the NSA but also to innumerable other state & non-state security services.

2. We need to work out how to maintain the balance of power between the individual and the state.

3. We need to work out how to maintain business & personal relationships in an era of total transparency.

4. We need to work out how to maintain our freedom and independence of thought when the objects of our attention, our knowledge and our feelings can be observed and (potentially) controlled in detail.