Technology

The ultimate solution to this (after we massacre a bunch of plutocrats) is to require a tightly constrained warrant for the state to use any data in order to convict someone of a crime, whether they buy it, get it from a willing third party (e.g. all the telecommunications services like AT&T and Verizon) or send a SWAT team to secure your computer gear at your own home. All these things should require a narrowly constrained warrant.

Right now, with much thanks to court precedent and SCOTUS gutting the fourth and fifth amendments to the Constitution of the United States, a lot of information is had by law enforcment without constraint, some of which comes from the NSA thanks to mission creep of the PRISM and XKeyscore projects. Since law enforcment routinely seizes liquid assets through asset forfeiture, the NSA will pass on tips to local precincts (Sheriffs, the TSA, etc.) who is travelling with too much cash, and the details of why they had to stop them and how they attained probable cause is determined later by the officers doing the seizing.

Every once in a while a tip is erroneous, and we get a team of ten or so officers seriously harassing some poor sod, or forcing deep cavity searches on some girl expected to be a mule, while the rest of us wonder why they're fixating on this innocent person while their chiefs allege we're in a crime wave (we aren't).

Much of the intelligence industrial complex that rose during the post 9/11/01 terrorism panic has been repurposed to track people travelling with too much money or too many liquidatable assets. And yes, if some sherrif is interested in your spouse or your lands or your fancy car, or getting your wrong-colored degernate family out of his county, utilizing the databases to find out where your nose isn't perfectly clean is routine.

So yes, the NSA has every reason to object to actual protections from the public regarding their spying, since they freely sell or trade intel for $$$$