But there are a whole lot of useful bothersome people [0] that make this country as great as it is. They don't self assemble their rigs and don't have the time and technical ability to protect themselves against a politicized aggressor like like the NSA.
The most important Americans are not the 44 presidents we've had but the millions of Americans who have dissented in the 229 years since the founding of the United States.
Those have participated in the civil rights, women's rights, antiwar, gay rights, labor movement, black power, antiglobalization, tea party, occupy wall street, animal rights, anti-tax movement (since 1765), American revolution, abolition movement, state's rights supporters, environmental movements, transparency movements, anti-NSA spying movement, etc., etc., etc., are the American's that matter. They matter more than all the presidents combined since they are the one's that led this nation to be a leader in the free world. What is being done now is potent enough to prevent future movements from helping us move further into being a more just nation.
[0] http://martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html
