Consider this real-life event: Over weeks, twelve jewelry stores in different locations are robbed, apparently by one group of unidentified robbers. Police obtain from telephone companies cell-phone records to locate any phone(s) used within 30 minutes’ distance of each robbery. Analyzing the data, they identify robbery suspects. No claim of “violation” of constitutional rights would void the suspects’ conviction.

No reason to treat better those attempting to destroy this country. That enemy exists, the evidence for it consisting of 3,000 lives lost on 9/11, the Boston Marathon massacre, and even the unsuccessful terrorist attacks on our airplanes and at Times Square. The NSA program is logical. Our intelligence people know phone numbers or area codes used by terrorists in various world locations. Wouldn’t you want our intelligence services to know who in the United States called those numbers and area codes and to examine the information to determine whether those calls were innocent or not? I certainly would. If this program had been applied to identify the Boston bombers, that attack could have been prevented.

Apparently recognizing that their constitutional argument on the NSA program itself is meritless, many opponents insist on a slippery slope of imagined horribles.