The United States is at a key crossroads, trying to regain the trust of its citizens and friendly nations around the world even while it continues to lie and dissimulate in defense of the National Security Agency's overreach. The obsessive eavesdropping of the US security state shows no signs of abating, despite the dangers it poses to US civil liberties, the conduct of diplomacy and even issues of war and peace.

US snooping on the United Nations in 2003 helped finesse the "slam dunk" diplomatic moment for promoting an ill-conceived war in Iraq, and may now influence emerging policy on Syria. Americans have unwittingly supported this dysfunctional state of affairs with their tax dollars even while spending on health, education and infrastructure has withered and crumbled.

Billions of dollars are poured into snooping, billions more on excessive secrecy, though former NSA operative Edward Snowden's vast revelations gave the world a free peek into how the world's most awesome spy machine operates.