It's very hard to say, because of the use of parallel construction. We know very little about what the NSA does with its data; even members of Congress are being denied access to this information. But we do know for a fact that the DEA has prosecuted people based on information they received from the NSA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130...

Tech people should be concerned about this because we are the ones with the knowledge necessary to do something about it. Because there's no transparency, it's impossible to tell how many people have been harmed by the violation of their privacy. It may be that nobody here is in that group: hacker news readers are probably mostly white and upper-middle class, not usually a target demographic. But if we don't do something about invasions of privacy, no one will, because no one else is capable.

Downvoted? But no answer? Seems to prove my point that the knee-jerk hatred of the NSA ought to be backed by some real world facts.

You appear to be ignoring the fact that even if you consider the NSA's work benevolent, it is only benevolent to US citizens. Meanwhile lots of us on here are, in fact, not US citizens, especially at this time of day. So the NSA's activities are all negative, no positive to non-Americans.