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.
