It is perfectly possible that the NSA really do need to damage human rights in order to fight terrorism. Just because they are acting improperly doesn't neccessarily mean that their arguments are entirely specious. The internet is hugely powerful for terrorists and the only answer the government have is to take away even more privacy. It is a slippery slope because the danger is real.
Edit. My comment was not excusing the actions of the NSA. I think that human rights should be protected at all costs and the spying should stop. I just think that a real threat probably does exist and this creates a catch 22 in a political sense.
It's much more likely, based on their behavior and activities that they've been caught doing, that they have no intention of genuinely using these powers for fighting terrorists, and instead intend to suppress domestic dissent and enhance policing powers.
It's just that they're counting on people like you to routinely show up when people point out their criminal actions and go "But what about the terrorists?"
Terrorists over the last decade (let's call it 15 years, to include 9/11) have killed fewer Americans than the lies of the president backed by secretive intelligence agencies fabricating evidence to shape politics.
They've also killed fewer Americans than trigger happy police officers.
They've killed fewer Americans - by two orders of magnitude! - than car crashes. In fact, in 2001, about an order of magnitude more people died in car crashes than in the 9/11 attacks.
The danger to the US is not terrorists, because they have a very limited capacity to cause actual harm. Instead, they rely on cowards who can't deal with being hurt without flying in to a blind panic/rage harming themselves as an after effect.
People making the arguments that you raise here do vastly more harm to the nation than terrorists ever directly could, and in fact, were a key portion of Osama bin Laden's plan to dismantle the United States - a feat he could never have hoped to accomplish directly, but which he seems to have made substantial progress at through the combination of public panic, the arguments raised by you here, and the short-sighted power grab of politicians.
Congratulations: you're raising an argument that's part of a trio of forces destroying the US at the behest of a terrorist. Far from your line of thinking stopping terrorists, you're enabling them to win, something that they could never have hoped to accomplish without assistance.
Damaging human rights is itself a form of harm that should go on the other side of the scales from fighting "terrorism". Ferguson reminded people that in many places the average person on the street is far, far more likely to be killed by a cop than a "terrorist".
Terrorism and police brutality are both law enforcement problems, and the solution is the same: enforce the existing law, impartially, publicly and universally.
The additional problem of terrorism is trying to fight it in other people's countries, where the enforcement brutality is even more of a problem. If you count the Iraq war as "anti-terrorism", then the effect of US anti-terrorism has been to kill, injure, abuse or displace far more people than Al-Quaida. ISIS are more deadly still, but they should be regarded as a hostile state rather than a terrorist group.
The internet is a communication method. It's powerful because it's widespread and fast, but it's not a 'tool for terrorism'. The internet doesn't make bombs or create extremism. People do that. Claiming that violating privacy is the only way to fight terrorism is ludicrous. If their goal was to make the US a lesser target of terrorism, they'd be changing foreign policy, monitoring financial flow and looking for equipment and materials. The TSA, for all their paranoia-fuelled craziness, is a much fairer way to stop terrorism than wide-spread monitoring of a communication channel.
As an aside, terrorism as a general thing isn't new. The US was founded with an act of what would now be considered terrorism (the Boston tea party). Americans are so hung up on their constitution, but they don't believe the founding fathers considered these situations when drafting it? Or did 'talking to each other more efficiently' so radically change things in ways they couldn't foresee?
You are attacking a straw man. I never said that violating privacy was the only way of fighting terrorism. There are undoubtly far better ways, but they are not the ways that the NSA are actually using and defending publically. And the government may not have alternative methods readily available.
"It is perfectly possible that the NSA really do need to damage human rights in order to fight terrorism"
This is the first sentence of your comment.
"the only answer the government have is to take away even more privacy"
Is in there too.
If the government doesn't have alternative ways readily available, then you are saying violating privacy is the only way to fight terrorism we have right now. This is demonstrably not true, since they do use a lot of better ways. There are many more ways to combat terrorism that they haven't even tried on any scale yet (at least publicly). The very premise that the NSA's actions are justified because the threat mandates it is flawed.
Edit. My comment was not excusing the actions of the NSA. I think that human rights should be protected at all costs and the spying should stop. I just think that a real threat probably does exist and this creates a catch 22 in a political sense.