What's even worse is that there is an extremely simple, cheap, and constitutional way for US leaders to dramatically reduce the risk of terrorism: stop engaging in aggressive wars and stop supporting corrupt foreign governments.
That surveillance systems of unprecedented cost and scope are built while this option is not even considered demonstrates very clearly that the proponents of both militarism and surveillance are not genuinely interested in preventing terrorism but in increasing their own power.
While I agree with you, it's important to note that every government is corrupt to some degree and the US is forced to participate in these wars as, since the end of WWII, it's been looked upon as the de facto police force of the western world. The US can't simply turn a blind eye to the middle east and let oil prices be used to wage an economic war with all western nations(likely a war we'd lose). And I'm sure there are similar concerns with every other conflict in question.
Unfortunately, like all this related to politics, the situation is complicated.
So in order to avoid losing a hypothetical future trade war, we'll bankrupt ourselves with military spending, kill a couple million people, lose our civil liberties, and create 1000x more new enemies. Sounds logical!
No one's bankrupt(relatively speaking). The USD is still the world currency and western economies are still as a whole better off than China or Russia. The guys running the show know exactly what they are doing and what they are doing is keeping those other two countries out of the middle east.
What politicians say publically versus what they actually agree to are two totally different things. It's simply vogue to complain about American led international conflicts right now. It's just a big show to drum up votes. One has to look no further than the recent press surrounding the nsa, echelon and other programs to see just how complicit other western countries are with American imperialism. Heck, even if they didn't want the US involved in the middle east, no one else is going to stand up to China or Russia if the US was to leave. So, everyone maintains status quo.
The question also arises: how effective is the mass surveillance recently revealed? Probably have to wait to see but would a group of intelligent news-aware persons with terrorist intent choose to plan or discuss their malevolent actions via electronic media?
That surveillance systems of unprecedented cost and scope are built while this option is not even considered demonstrates very clearly that the proponents of both militarism and surveillance are not genuinely interested in preventing terrorism but in increasing their own power.