So, I believe, many lives were saved thanks to the surveillance.
I read this today so thought I would share it here:
https://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-phone-snooping-illegal-court-finds-2020-9Despite monitoring all the mobile phone data of millions of Americans for years, the NSA could only point to a single criminal case where this data was used, and it turns out that even then it was irrelevant to the conviction. So not only did the mass surveillance not prevent a single terrorist attack, but it wasn't even useful in convicting terrorists after the attacks had taken place. That, of course, didn't stop them from blatantly lying and saying that such programs are vital to preventing terrorist attacks.
Now, ask yourself why the government would continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on mass surveillance when they knew it wasn't preventing attacks or leading to convictions?
Population control.
No NSA fan myself, so I'm not going to defend them. Snooping on Americans' phone records was definitely a violation of the right to privacy, among others. The good news is that it's over now:
The NSA's program of collecting bulk metadata was discontinued in 2015 when Congress passed the USA Freedom Act.
Imo, they(NSA, CIA, FBI and the likes) shouldn't be aloud to do whatever they want. Yet, I wouldn't go so far to say that the world would be a better place without them. There are evil people in this world, who have to be stopped. But, of course, the "stoppers" must be under constant public supervision.