we need to reduce the level of general surveillance, but how far? Where exactly is the maximum tolerable level of surveillance, which we must ensure is not exceeded?

Easy, at least in America, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, created to protect, not establish, natural rights. Therefore it is prescriptive in the fourth amendment on this issue.

"the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

I would contend that we just have a bunch of people who have actively participated in violation of their oaths of office, of which they sign an affidavit (5 U.S.C. 3333) they will not violate while in office, the punishment of which (18 U.S.C. 1918) is removal from office and confinement or a fine.

I think we need to start taking people to court for violation of their oath, but of course proving (5 U.S.C. 7311) “advocate[ing] the overthrow of our constitutional form of government” is the legally difficult problem, so I have been meaning to learn more about legal research to find precedents of this actually being done or other legal precedents where someone has been convicted of advocating X. Of course it might be easier to prove the subsection of being a member of an organization which advocates it.

Of course the privacy issue affects more than just the US, but as former military I take my oath, the only oath I have ever taken (secret oaths speech of JFK anyone?), to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic, very seriously.

I have spent years since I got out and did my Descartes reset trying to understand the current threats to the constitution, and to be frank it's not the terrorists I'm scared of, its the corrupt and the cowardly in the beltway and on wallstreet that I fear are so ready to undermine our freedoms under the obviously false banner of protecting those freedoms.

All three branches of government (and the fourth estate) are corrupted, infiltrated, and subverted from the top down by the surveillance engine, which also happens to double as a blackmail engine. The oligarchy towards the end of the 90's began to understand the threat of freedom of thought on the internet and the surveillance engine has already been put in place, and as William Binney and Thomas Drake have said, now all it needs is the right dictator to "turn the key", and potentially walk the cat back on stored data on dissidents. Remember that protest you attended a few years ago? That thing your wrote? If they are so willing to get rid of things like habeus corpus, what makes you think removal of other things like ex post facto is so far fetched?

That's the slippery slope of unconstitutionality, in that by allowing one usurpation of the constitution because of a thing you agree with (on HN a good example might be the second amendment), you then open the flood gates to allow more and more stripping of rights.

Bottom line is this, get a fucking warrant or it's unconstitutional!

edit: and no, general warrants and writs of assistance don't count as a constitutional warrant.