&gt; <i>You do realize that they are serving a cause much greater than you or I, and certainly Twitter, for that matter?</i><p>I really want to believe that. I think it would be a better world if I <i>could</i> believe that. But we&#x27;ve seen pretty conclusively that the goals of intelligence agencies don&#x27;t always line up with the best interests of the citizens they purportedly serve.<p>So there&#x27;s a line that has to be walked. How can we give them enough power to defend us, but not enough power to hurt us? We can&#x27;t; we can only make trade-offs and hope they&#x27;re the right ones.<p>This would be so much easier if the people tasked to defend us could be trusted. But they&#x27;ve shown, conclusively, that they can&#x27;t.