Ball: Me too! There are a lot of issues here, not least that the technological capabilities of the NSA have hugely outpaced the efforts of most lawmakers to meaningfully understand them, let alone regulate them.

In the environment after 9/11, the agency had a permissive environment to expand its remit, masses more funding, and technological advancements making surveillance possible on a scale never previously imaginable. For privacy advocates, the past decade was essentially the perfect storm.

That encroachment happened under three Presidents, from two parties. I don’t think this is a partisan issue. It feels a little like the (apocryphal) tale of a frog in boiling water: if the water is slowly heated, the frog never notices it’s being cooked.

A final note is that at a bare minimum we need to hold senior intelligence officials accountable in public, and demand honest answers. Obama’s Director of National Intelligence has been accused of outright lying to Congress, seemingly with no adverse consequences. If you’re looking to increase accountability and transparency, surely you’ve got to start there.