My point was that even with pretty obvious criminal activity in the Watergate scandal, it still took a long time for it to reach crisis point, so it's a bit early to judge how the NSA thing might play out.

I agree with you about the messaging, and don't think the fourth amendment has ever supplied the broad privacy protection that its boosters seem to imagine. I think we need a more explicit privacy amendment, but haven't really thought about how to effectively promote this idea so far.