62% of Americans do not mind rape of their privacy. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-06-11/news/39899528_1_pew-research-centre-terrorist-attacks-cent-americans
One of the smartest IT security professionals on the planet, Bruce Schneirer, writes what I’ve thought since day 1 of this infosec breach. Snowden will ultimately get the Julian Assange/Bradley Manning treatment. Not so much because of the laws purportedly broken, but because the US really dislikes being punked when it comes their “national security”
Last, if the meta data gathering was available to the British when we started fighting for our independence, we would have lost, and lost bad. For the apologists who think this privacy invasion is justified so long as it prevents terrorist attacks (theoretical, since they hide behind the cloak of national security) should think better since our way of life would not exist. The Brits would have won. The patriots we so admire, Jackson, Washington, Franklin, etc would have likely been executed and their stories never printed in the history books.
Read thoroughly, its not boring. I promise.
http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/