> that in practice amounted to absolutely nothing, because the NSA kept doing what it wanted pretty much all the time.

Did you read the article I linked to? If so, how does your statement mesh with the fact that, based on the order issued by judge discussed in that article, the NSA was forced to change their collection and minimization procedures and delete all of the data that had been previously collected under that program[1]? This was all very much pre-Snowden.

> They just lied a few times more here and there

Like where? I keep seeing this argument - Clapper said something in a Congressional hearing that turned out to not be true, therefore everything anyone in the government says is a lie. Greenwald has documents on everything the NSA is doing; why haven't I seen any other documents catching officials lying to the public?

> That's not oversight, that's 4 people...

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence currently has 22 members; the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has 19 members; the FISC has 11 judges. That doesn't include their any of their staff.

> All the stuff about "parallel construction" is enough

When Reuters broke the parallel construction story, they mentioned this in the reporting[2] (emphasis mine):

"Today, the SOD offers at least three services to federal, state and local law enforcement agents: coordinating international investigations such as the Bout case; distributing tips from overseas NSA intercepts, informants, foreign law enforcement partners and domestic wiretaps; and circulating tips from a massive database known as DICE."

...

"Wiretap tips forwarded by the SOD usually come from foreign governments, U.S. intelligence agencies or court-authorized domestic phone recordings. Because warrantless eavesdropping on Americans is illegal, tips from intelligence agencies are generally not forwarded to the SOD until a caller's citizenship can be verified, according to one senior law enforcement official and one former U.S. military intelligence analyst."

> In that case, the responsibility of NSA and GCHQ was to alert Google of the vulnerability and ask them to fix it, not abuse it.

The NSA has a responsibility to protect US national security; it is under no obligation to protect to security of foreign communications. Like I mentioned in my comment, if groups outside the US were taking advantage of this to spy on Americans, then that's something I'd like to see in the headlines. If that's the case, the NSA would need to justify prioritizing its foreign spying over protecting US interests.

> If it did, you'd be screaming that it's irresponsible disclosure

I think disclosing how the NSA conducts its operations without any further justification is irresponsible. If a news agency (especially an American one; I can understand why a foreign one wouldn't care) goes and tells the world exactly how a US intelligence agency is collecting information without showing me evidence of abuse, all they're doing is tipping off legitimate intelligence targets on how to avoid being spied on. In order to show evidence of abuse, you need to answer at least a few of those questions that I posed. I want abuse stopped, not legitimate intelligence work. This article doesn't show abuse.

> As I said, there is a world beyond the US border.

Which is exactly why we have spies. Do you think the NSA has no legitimate purpose?

[1] http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/08/the-nsa-documents-part-iv...

[2] http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE97409R20130805?irpc...