> Because every group you've named has the same overarching goal - to keep people free and safe.

This statement sounds hopelessly naive to me. Sure, those groups say they work to keep people free and save, but their track record with those goals is tragically abysmal. In fact, there is mountainous and credible evidence that their activities are accomplishing the exact opposite of their stated goals (see the history of intelligence activities in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the rest of the Americas and familiarize yourself with the phenomenon of 'blowback').

Additionally, even if we take them at their words, their efforts at secrecy prevent us as citizens from any kind of meaningful oversight.

> Pretending like the intelligence community is some kind of evil monster is a great way to get ignored by the intelligence community, and for good reason.

Given that the intelligence community ignores the questions and objections of the very powerful - our Senators and Represenatives - how is anything I say going to effect who they ignore or pay attention to? Oh noes, they're going to ignore us even harder! What are we going to do?!?!

The intelligence community doesn't ignore senators and representatives. That isn't happening except in a political fantasy world where being opposed to the NSA is beneficial.

What's naive is believing that you have enough information to make a decision about whether or not the NSA is effective at what it does, or that you have enough information to determine that US foreign action is why we're being threatened.

You elect representatives because there is no possible way to inform you about everything. This is not a direct democracy for many very good reasons.

> The intelligence community doesn't ignore senators and representatives. That isn't happening except in a political fantasy world where being opposed to the NSA is beneficial.

You are ignorant of basic historical information necessary to have an effective discussion on this topic. If you were up to date, you would know about our elected representatives that sit on the security council being stonewalled, ignored, and lied to by the representatives of the intelligence community which are supposed to inform them. They are supposed to inform them of what they are doing so that they can do their jobs as our representatives. If our representatives are ignorant, how can they possibly do their jobs as our representatives?

Clapper LIED to Congress. This is not a disputable fact. He lied. This is Federal offense - why is he not in jail? The US Government is issuing the most bizarre, hypocritical, carefully parsed statements about everything relating to this fiasco - are you cool with this kind of behavior from the most powerful organization in the world?

I'm not advocating direct democracy or direct knowledge of what the NSA does. What I am advocating is that the IC follow the goddamn law - both the statutes and the Constitution: 'social contract' which keeps our society running.

I also note you skipped the entirety of my first point.