What you will not see are demands from a significant number of elected officials to end the NSA

[Douglas Carpenter]

surveillance program. There SHOULD be demands that it be stopped immediately. But that is not going to happen.
Few elected officials want to risk being accused of risking American lives. Americans SHOULD be outraged but you will see that most will accept it as necessary. However much they should be, most Americans are not outraged about this. In fact the public has been so
frightened by fear of the terrorist threat and rumors of terrorist threat that they essentially demanded it. When the entire Boston Metropolitan area is shut down over two deaths - when it is an enormous scandal to have even one single death related to terrorism and the public is demanding to know who failed and why - the message is established - do whatever you have to do - just stop the threat of terror. If thoughts of pipe bombs don't get them demanding an ever intrusive security state - try dirty bombs - if that doesn't do it - mention mushroom clouds -,OBVIOUSLY - a surveillance state this big invites abuse and is a threat to our liberty - but the American people have been frightened and ultimately are demanding it. Some day they may come to regret it. Some day it may become clear to everyone that a surveillance apparatus this big was a giant step down the road to an authoritarian Orwellian police state. But for now they will accept it - if not demand it.

[FarCenter]

1. The alternative to surveillance is more of a police state

Surveillance provides the ability to pinpoint developing situations and nip them in the bud discretely.

The alternative is more physical security, more police, more use of informants, more controls over commerce, and more checkpoints and restrictions on movement.

[indepat]

3. Suspect there is a bit of the alternative going on as has been found out by members of the OWS

movement and others who have been surreptitiously tased, pepper sprayed, roughed up, or shot through overzealousness by someone carrying a badge and packing heat.

[FarCenter]

4. That is what happens when more discrete methods fail

[indepat]

2. We can sacrifice countless thousands of Americans because of ludicrous interpretations of

the sacrosanct 2nd Amendment, gut the 4th Amendment, but politicians are afraid they'd soil their pants if accused of being soft on terra or weak on national defense.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. To claim people have demanded that which was kept secret from them takes some stones.

Here is what one of my Senators said in 2011:
Statement of Senator Wyden

On Patriot Act Reauthorization

May 26, 2011

Mr. President, the United States Senate is now preparing to pass another four-year extension of the USA Patriot Act. I have served on the Intelligence Committee for a decade, and I want to deliver a warning this afternoon: when the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry. And they will be asking senators, “Did you know what this law actually permits?” “Why didn’t you know before you voted on it?” The fact is that anyone can read the plain text of the Patriot Act, and yet many members of Congress have no idea how the law is being secretly interpreted by the executive branch, because that interpretation is classified.

It’s almost as if there are two Patriot Acts, and many members of Congress haven’t even read the one that matters. Our constituents, of course, are totally in the dark. Members of the public have no access to the executive branch’s secret legal interpretations, so they have no idea what their government thinks this law means.
http://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/in-speech-wyden-says-official-interpretations-of-patriot-act-must-be-made-public

Wyden's view of his constituents is very different from your own. As one of them I can tell you Ron is correct.