We live in an electronic world - almost everything we do has an electronic aspect and can therefore be spied upon. That's why I can't believe everyone is so shocked about the NSA eavesdropping. When I first learned about the NSA I read that its purpose was SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) - electronic spying. That's what the NSA does - that's what it's for.
What interests me about this debate we're now having is that nobody has yet mentioned COINTELPRO - which was a notorious FBI program from the 1960s. It was used to not only monitor and spy on activist groups and individuals, but to also disrupt their actions. The current hand-wringing about the NSA just concerns passive data-mining - there is no engagement or disruption going on, as far as we know. So it's really not a big deal. Not yet, anyway. Stay tuned.