They're not supposed to "target" domestic traffic. Their means of "targeting" are very coarse, and if there's any restriction on what they can do with domestic traffic they got without "targeting" it, no one has mentioned it yet. Monitoring international traffic is part of the NSA's job, so while admittedly I don't think the NSA should exist at all, I also think that if it's going to, it should be constrained to only doing its job, and forbidden to keep or share with any other organization domestic traffic that wasn't "targeted". As it stands, there's been no mention of any rule against it collecting (but not "targeting") citizen's emails, and then passing anything interesting it finds along to the FBI.I was not upset at the NSA monitoring cross-border conversations/emails. This really bothers me.
And not to mention the FBI has extensive tapping/eavsdropping programs of it's own, which it could also share the other way with the NSA. All enforcement branches have their own massive data collection and mining programs with the intent of "snooping". Carnivore was one of the FBI's programs that made some headlines a few years ago. It's in the same vein as the NSA/PRISM outrage going on now, except there wasn't any outrage over it at the time really, it still made a lot of headlines. Carnivore, after it made headlines, had it's name changed and went further underground to difuse some of the negative press it was getting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(software) Was later changed (or replaced with) to:passing anything interesting it finds along to the FBI.
I would like to point out none of this makes us any "safer"
I agree. It didn't stop 9/11, or Boston, or the 7/7 bombings in London. But the one quote that I always try to remember, from the West Wing, and I'm paraphrasing here. It was made by someone talking about the CIA and they said "The problem with our reputation is our successes are private, our failures are public." Again, I agree with you, but that quote (although from a TV show), kind of made me ponder the situation national security agencies are in a little deeper.
the problem with the CIA is that its failures are largely private as well. it is feedback free system with no accountability.