That is part of the problem. A legal framework, relying in part on secret rulings re-interpreting the Fourth Amendment, have has been constructed for these programs to give them 'legality'. Secret courts, secret laws and secret rulings are blatantly antithetical to a democracy and do give the sheen of a police state, but at the same time politicians and talking heads can refer to these programs as 'legal'.
What amazes me is that Clapper can baldly lie to Congress and not even have to resign, let alone be prosecuted. Lying to Congress is a federal crime! Yet the government spends $40 million prosecuting Roger Clemens for lying to Congress about steroids, and they couldn't even get a conviction.
Also, Clapper has been wrong about many things, including Libya and Egypt. I believe the US government wants total spying because their intelligence agencies are so incompetent at identifying threats. 9/11 proves this as the CIA had identified two of the hijackers as Al Qaeda members, determined they had US visas and then did not tell the FBI or State Department. The NSA had phone transcriptions of terrorists and refused to share them with the FBI. The FBI actually started building listening stations in Africa and the east at great expense due to NSA intransigence.
Before 9/11, they were very vigilant about respecting laws on intelligence gathering. After 9/11 it all went out the window, laws were broadened and oversight has been strangled.
Also, the authorization that merchants do to make sure you have the money will tie up that money on your account even if you cancel the purchase before being charged. On a credit card it will tie up the equivalent credit, but at least it is not cash being locked up.
There is very good evidence that the reduction in crime is related to the levels of lead in blood. The correlation between crime and lead levels is found on the international, national, state, city and even block by block level.
Stop and frisk can be legally done, but the way the NYPD implements it is clearly discriminatory. There is no better way to create a criminal than to treat someone like one from adolescence.
E-verify already exists and has existed since 1997. However, it is optional for most employers. It already has biometric identifiers. The bill would make its use mandatory by employers.
You are correct: the probability that it is properly implemented is not good. I know for a fact that it can be used to look up people by name alone, although it does keep an audit trail of who has looked at each person's records.
People were voting against the rights of gays even though the right for same-sex couples to marry had no effect on them personally.