"On June 19, 2013, Tice claimed while being interviewed that the NSA had spied on Barack Obama while he was a senator, along with monitoring federal judges, ranking military officials, and other members of Congress, saying he himself had seen and held papers ordering such actions.[12][13] He went on to say, "This thing is incredible what NSA has done. They've basically turned themselves—in my opinion—into a rogue agency that has J. Edgar Hoover capabilities on a monstrous scale on steroids"."
Remember, this has already happened very recently in our nation's history, during J. Edgar Hoover's direction of the FBI:
"Hoover became a controversial figure, as evidence of his secretive actions became known. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI.[1] He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.[3] Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting Presidents.[4]"
This part of american history needs to be shouted from the mountain tops. "The Burglary" and COINTELPRO need to be mandatory teaching subjects in our schools. It's not a conspiracy theory to suspect NSA of controlling politics and activism through blackmail and coercion. This is exactly what has happened before with Hoover's FBI, and there's every reason to believe this is happening again with the NSA.