I think the article isn't really about elected representatives, it's about the attitudes of ordinary Americans. Like the author and many other pro-American Europeans, I've been pretty disillusioned by the recent reaction to PRISM. Like drone assassination before it, most Americans aren't saying "how dare our government do this" but "how dare our government do this TO US CITIZENS".

(I'm not talking about spying on political leaders, the military etc - everyone does that to everyone else. But it seems that most Americans think it's perfectly fine to invade the privacy of ordinary people on a massive scale, just as long as those people don't hold a US passport.)