One lesson of American history is that in times of war or crisis, American presidents, lawmakers, and citizens often lose their minds. Another lesson is that they eventually regain their senses. When it comes to national security in the age of terrorism, it looks as though the national fever has broken. 

When Congress passed the PATRIOT Act in October 2001, it gave the federal government greater authority for foreign intelligence and terrorism investigations. In those panicky days, the impulse was to say: Do whatever you have to do, and if the American Civil Liberties Union isn't happy, do more of it. 

But even those who wanted to unleash the national security state didn't realize what they were creating. Not until 2013, when leaks by Edward Snowden exposed the actual scope of government surveillance, did we find out how far the Bush administration and the Obama administration were willing to go in sacrificing privacy. 

Snowden let us know that by 2006, the National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting and storing records of virtually every phone call made in the United States. Not just calls by al-Qaida operatives and Hezbollah sympathizers: calls by Serena Williams, Tom Hanks, Uncle Zeke, and, of course, you.