I want law enforcement to be a difficult, time consuming job.

Idle law enforcement is a terrible thing. When law enforcement has spare time, they will find ways to occupy it. Sometimes it will be by overzealous enforcement of low level laws and other times their idleness will be used an a pretext for politicians to pass even more micro-managing laws.

It's this kind of thing that led to women being arrested for wearing bathing suits that exposed their calves. It's this kind of thing that resulted in young men being arrested for the bad fashion decision of sagging jeans.

When they complain that something will make their job more difficult, I say good. I want law enforcement to be difficult and time consuming so that it loses its luster for the people who want to join up for all of the wrong reasons.

The state has all the power, therefore the burden of proof should be solely on it. This is where the doctrine of presumed innocence comes from.

I have a lot of trouble viewing anything involving the NSA as "law enforcement". Like the CIA, aren't they specifically created to subvert the law in other countries and not operate in their own jurisdiction?

There's no high tech terror for the NSA to fight. So-called intelligence about what Angela Merkel is thinking is of no diplomatic or economic use.

The NSA has almost no purpose in practical government.

But the NSA does do a lot and has a mission. It's the same mission US law enforcement always invents for itself. The NSA provides lots of leads to cops to arrest innocent drug dealers. Aside from parallel construction, the NSA does the same thing most FBI, DEA, and Border Patrol dollars go to: small time non-violent drug offender persecution.

The NSA is also heavily engaged in industrial espionage.

What Angela Merkel has to say may be irrelevant, but having insights into trade deals before they are signed certainly isn't.

Only if you want to try and unfairly tip the balance towards yourselves by outmanouvering your opponents, in which case the unfairness of the resulting trade deals will be obvious to all who read them. Attempting to fuck with an economy the size of Europe's by spying in trade negotiations only leads to problems in the long run.

Collusion, then things like "parallel reconstruction" and inter-agency agreements to keep things dark.

Power always corrupts. The big lie is "No, our motives are to keep you safe, and [list of the usual bad things] can't possibly happen this time."

I used the term loosely, but the FBI director was the one agitating for crypto legislation recently.