Who is listening in?

The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy concerned the illegal surveillance of persons within the United States. Under this program, the NSA was authorized by to monitor, without phone calls, e-mails, Internet activity, and text messaging. There was no legal justification for this surveillance, and NSA supposedly was allowed to monitor anyone they believed to be outside the United States. The NSA was provided total, unsupervised access to communications going between some of the nation's major telecommunication companies. So, if a civilian in the United States was talking on the phone to a friend in England, they could have potentially been monitored by the NSA. As a person who has a friend in England, this thought makes me supremely uncomfortable, and I envision a faceless NSA agent listening to my most private secrets. The Bush administration justified this wiretappings by saying that they were preventing future terrorist attacks. And some Republicans support this by saying, “Wiretaps and Homeland Security as implemented by George Bush sure as Hell would have stopped 9/11.” But how do they know this? It seems to me that a group so intent on destroying the United States would not let random wiretapping stop them. They would probably speak in code, and not use the same phone every time. What are the chances that the NSA is listening in on a real terrorist group rather than someone wishing Grandma happy birthday? In this case, it seems that losing the trust and respect of the American people is less important than listening in on conversations without just cause.