Every year that we're at war is probably a year in which our privacy is diminished.

[kpete]

War Erodes Privacy
by BooMan

.....we've been at war for 12 years and this is one of the consequences of that. Relatedly, we've made some rather dedicated enemies, and this is also a consequence of that. Privacy is a casualty of policies that make so many people want to harm us. It's not a coincidence that we enacted the FISA laws and reopened the assassination investigations and made all kinds of reforms of the intelligence community as soon as the Vietnam War ended. There was no possibility that we would make those reforms while the war was ongoing. Every year that we're at war is probably a year in which our privacy is diminished.

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Senator Wyden repeatedly asked the NSA to estimate the number of Americans whose communications had been incidentally collected, and the agency's director, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, insisted there was no way to find out. Eventually Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III wrote Wyden a letter stating that it would violate the privacy of Americans in NSA data banks to try to estimate their number.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story_3.html

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Bruce Schneier, The Atlantic:

The U.S. government is on a secrecy binge. It overclassifies more information than ever. And we learn, again and again, that our government regularly classifies things not because they need to be secret, but because their release would be embarrassing.


What We Don't Know About Spying on Citizens: Scarier Than What We Know
Schneier is a cybersecurity blogger, concerned about the US apparent interest in intrusion and lack of interest in cybersecurity. That is, he is concerned that the US seems more interested in offensive cyberwarfare capabilities and less interested in defensive cyberwarfare capabilities--which essentially make the most cyber-dependent country on earth a sitting duck for attacks on commercial infrastructure.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/what-we-dont-know-about-spying-on-citizens-scarier-than-what-we-know/276607/

NOT MUCH HOPE FOR CHANGE:
“We are always open to changes, but that doesn’t mean there will be any,” Intelligence Committee Chairman Diane Feinstein told reporters after a two-hour long meeting with staff from various intelligence agencies.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/07/1214387/-Lawmakers-are-super-convincing-about-their-intent-to-secretly-debate-NSA-spying-on-Americans?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+(Daily+Kos)

[Initech]

1. And considering we're a country that's constantly at war...

And we'll never end the ones we started, this will probably be permanent.