Security scandals, then and now

I think, from what we know to date, that one can draw a distinction between the FBI's actions in the 60s-70s and the "homeland security" (esp. NSA) activities today. (From what we know to date.)  There's no single point of tyranny as Hoover provided, and I haven't heard (or aren't recalling) any particular abuses of the domestic intelligence that the NSA has pulled together in the way that Hoover's FBI acted.

Of course, the FBI is now a "national security" agency primarily, not a "law enforcement" agency, so there's certain room for a further spiral out of control again.  And the FBI under Hoover provides an object lesson of what a security/enforcement agency without oversight or public visibility to its actions can do in the wrong hands (or even in the right hands).  The NSA is not the Hoover FBI, but Hoover's FBI provides a cautionary tale of why we should be worried by pervasive surveillance, whether it's currently being abused or not.  Because, rest assured, it will be.