WHY THE NSA WOULD WANT TO SPY ON AMERICANS

As a result of the revelations made by Edward Snowden, the world witnessed a ton of outcry and furor over the activities of the US National Security Agency. The outcry came not only from within the US, but also from foreign countries that were being spied on, like Brazil, France, Germany and many other nations, even those that are allies to the US. The NSA even went as far as spying on the leaders of Brazil and Germany, by tapping into their mobile phones aand listening to their private conversations. These revelations about Nsa spying threatened to shaken the alliance between the US and its allies. 

I perfectly understand why Angela Merkel and Dilma Russef would be so furious, and I clearly understand the anger of every American citizen too. Afterall, if the NSA were just left to continue spying on the rest of the world as it wants, things would get way out of control. It's not yet clear to me exactly what about the NSA's spying caused so much outcry, was it the scale and span of the spying, or the mere fact that the NSA was collecting call records of Americans. In its defence, the NSA argues that the collection of personal data on Americans is necessary to protect american interests around the world, maintaining peace and stability worldwide, and above all, protecting americans and american soil from terrorist attacks. So it's not all bad news.

Here's my take: Since the failure of the US government and the NSA to prevent the America from the 9/11 attacks, there has been a lot of consciousness on the part of those tasked with the enormous task of keeping America safe, to prevent such an attack. Sometimes, you need to do something bad, in order to do something good, even if that entails spying on your own citizens. It is true that NSA snooping went too far, by spying on personal interactions of foreign leaders, but in some way, it is a part of the game today. Almost every nation spies, eventhough not all of them do it as massively as the US.
And it can indeed be accepted, when the NSA says it collects all that data for security purposes. Sometimes, in order to get something, you have to sacrifice some other thing. So if a good night's sleep, free of the threat of a terrorist comes at the expense of your personal data, that to me is a small price to pay. 

The crucial thing the NSA needs to do, is balance personal data collection for security purposes data collection for the thrill of it, and the capability to do so. If that balance is found, the NSA to me, would be doing an amazing job.