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Glad to retract the first sentence of that if it hurt your feelings, but honestly how do you envision running/protecting a country without an organization with a similar mission statement in the modern world?

I'm a peaceful person, but not all of the world is. You just can't ignore that. Even if you're Switzerland, you don't want to essentially keep your ears open for people sending coded messages about their potential plans to bomb Switzerland?

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Let's get right down to brass tacks, here. America is an imperial force in most of the world. We are attacked in response to our aggression. References to this "modern" world are somewhat weasely to me: The NSA exists to protect us from retaliation, not unjustified attacks. It's impossible to talk about spying without bringing in the whole fabric of our foreign wars.

People love to rail against the US but not the entire West. That makes for easy do nothing status quo.

No, not if it means spying on allies or even enemies.

My feelings are not going to get hurt over an internet comment. And you were downvoted because your response to me was over-the-top condescending. I took the bait and made an inflammatory response in return, but I've since deleted it.

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