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There's still a lot of things you can legitimately do to make America safe through electronic surveillance.

Just because technological advances have made it easier for the federal government to collect information doesn't mean that our privacy rights can or should be violated on the ground or in the air.

In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?

We do not take away the powers of surveillance. We do not take away the right and the power of the government to go after those who would do us wrong.

The government must give proper weight to both keeping America safe from terrorists and protecting Americans' privacy. But when Americans lack the most basic information about our domestic surveillance programs, they have no way of knowing whether we're getting that balance right. This lack of transparency is a big problem.

The NSA has the greatest surveillance capabilities in American history... The real problem is that they're using these capabilities to make us vulnerable.

Taking privacy cues from the federal government is - to say the least - ironic, considering today's Orwellian level of surveillance. At virtually any given time outside of one's own home, an American citizen can reasonably assume his movements and actions are being monitored by something, by somebody, somewhere.

Foreigners like me have no privacy rights whatsoever. Yet we keep using U.S.-based services all the time, making us a legal target for gathering and storing our private information. Other countries do surveillance as well. But nobody has the global visibility that United States does.

Ever since we've had electronic communications, and particularly during a time of war, presidents have authorized the electronic surveillance of the enemy.

We need to protect the privacy rights of all Americans, and that means stopping the federal government from spying on the cellphones and emails of law-abiding citizens.