Why can't the middle ground just be that we have spy agencies that obey the law, and the limitations as defined by the Constitution of the United States?
I don't think anybody is suggesting curtailing all intelligence gathering, but even if they just cut the program back to deal with extranational phone calls, you're now spying far less on your own citizens, and are indeed spying in a way less likely to generate as many false positives and that are more easy to justify an express reason for.
I'm not suggesting that's a valid fix, because I still wouldn't find that acceptable, but definitely it is preferable to what we have now.
I don't think anybody is suggesting curtailing all intelligence gathering, but even if they just cut the program back to deal with extranational phone calls, you're now spying far less on your own citizens, and are indeed spying in a way less likely to generate as many false positives and that are more easy to justify an express reason for.
I'm not suggesting that's a valid fix, because I still wouldn't find that acceptable, but definitely it is preferable to what we have now.