Well..
* The NSA imbroglio resembles McCarthyism in some ways.
* Segregation and civil rights are still significant issues in some parts of the country; the battle has simply moved away from "offical" fights into more indirect fighting using tactics like "school vouchers" and "redlining".
* Muslims and people of Arab descent are mistreated rather badly at times.
* Women's suffrage hasn't been in question for a while now, but there are certainly a lot of attacks against women in recent politics with significant attacks against abortion rights and women's healthcare in general.
* We don't call it slavery, but the prison–industrial complex has a LOT to answer for, and is a growing problem.
The point is that things like what the NSA is doing are clearly illegal in my mind and I think 20 years from now our kids will look back and say "how did you let this happen?" but it will be made illegal. Will the spy agencies and over-reaching corporate entities continue trying to find a way to circumvent the new laws and the interpretations of the old laws? Absolutely. However, we will have made progress.
I guess this brings up the grand question: will we ever reach enlightenment enough to stop spying and oppressing our own citizens, denizens, visitors, and allies? I think it'll take a few centuries but yes. Eventually I think we will get there through lots of lessons learned the hard way.
Spying on your own people, however, is something that has always been hidden in this country except the times it has arisen to the public eye (think of the communism-witch-hunts of American citizens by the government and fellow citizens).
... only to retreat and be hidden again and forgotten again.
At best, these people believe it is an obligated imperative to spy on our own citizens in order to keep them safe after the sickening mandate congress and the American public gave them weeks after 9/11 and ever since. "They are scared and they demand their government protect them, so we are going to protect them, even if it means violating everything we stand for".
At worst, they believe they need to control the public for their own benefit. Be that to accommodate lazy police work and law-enforcement work or to facilitate further abuse of the public at large by politicians and aristocrats. My vote is for a little bit of "at best" for the more naive and less involved politicians and "at worst" for those further to the inside. After all, there is nothing about spying on lovers, potential love interests, collecting dirt and blackmailing and threatening journalists, activists, and fellow politicians that is anything but vile and self-serving. Oh, and don't forget its primary use - not as a terror-prevention, but as a tool to protect American "economic interests" (if you recall the speech a few months ago, he listed "terrorism" as the last concern, after protecting our energy supply and then economic interest).
So I lean toward the more malevolent intent.
Either way, they will continue with this mindset and the only thing anyone will accomplish is some public dressing-down of certain scape-goats while the whole spying machine retreats back into the dark and continues to operate in silence.
Quite simply, none of us will ever know if they have actually stopped or not. Even if they do. Which they won't. They are above the law. Our only possible recourse is the widespread utilization of security measures that we must find a way to turn into common-practice. To the point that your great-grandmother wouldn't even think of sending a birthday card to little Billy without encrypting it.
Even that requires some degree of faith that the unlimited spending machine of the US Government (or the combined governments of Five Eyes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement), etc) haven't compromised its security. And assuming that utilization of such measures aren't simply outlawed (not an irrational concern, given that such security measures are -- or were a decade ago -- disallowed from inclusion in software for international distribution due to classification as a munition).
I also do think that introducing harsher laws for this type of stuff is a good technique. Currently the NSA is above the law, but that can change. Basically, if anyone there is caught doing anything illegal, they should be held to a higher, not lower standard since they do have the ability to do much more damage. Then spell out what constitutes legal vs illegal spying.
What I would most like to see is states assert the requirement that all wiretaps carried out within its borders to also require approval by a state judge and not just a federal judge. This two-factor auth would add another layer to prevent transgressions and abuse of warrants.