The FISA cases that authorize surveillance are secret. Laws used to prosecute people are not.
Who's prosecuted? They are just disappeared via extraordinary rendition.
For context: you're referring to Steve Clemons reporting on overhearing a bunch of people affiliated in some way with foreign intelligence services babbling at an airport about how Snowden should captured or killed.
When I hear someone who works for the USG talk about how we should turn some supposed adversary of the US into glass with a barrage of nuclear missiles, I do not immediately fear for the future of the planet.
I hope the people Clemens overheard are identified.
The "secret law" part is the one that really floors me. The FISA court orders are themselves secret. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. But knowledge of secret law is itself a crime.
America is now watched by secret police.