"We're stopping attacks daily..." is a misleading statement. The NSA may very well be stopping hackers from penetrating certain infrastructures, or foiling acts of cyber warfare. However, we have no idea how damaging these attacks would be precisely because the agency is so secretive, and these attacks are most CERTAINLY NOT preventing 'blow up a subway system'-type attacks daily. Not even close, by Alexander's own admission:

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/nsa_director_admits_to_misle.../

The 60 Minutes piece is misleading in many ways. It essentially gave Alexander a pulpit to refute the very serious constitutional violations he's overseen in the most effective way-- lying.

Of course it is. Although I'm not at all sure stopping cyber attacks is something that should be dismissed as unimportant out of hand. That's what I'm saying, though -- I don't trust the NSA, but the only option is to remove some of its capability until we can trust it again, and I think the only way to test how much they're lying is to just do that -- and then face whatever consequences there may be. (Also, didn't 60 minutes used to be a credible journalistic endeavor? I don't remember.)

Inre: your second paragraph. It's not Greenwald's responsibility. I think it's Snowden's to an extent. I almost included Obama's name in there somewhere, because in reality it's his call. I guess if you want to go the grand route, it's every American's responsibility. Elections in 2014 and 2016 may render America's judgement of this entire mess.

Must we have a counter-solution in order to point out constitutional violations?

Nope. But the (beginning of) the pointing out phase has already happened. We're getting to solution phase, and we don't have a viable one. We've ousted Nixon and now we need a better option than Ford. That's what I'm saying. I'm not picking a side.