I think your metrics for concern about potential threats is a little skewed. You seem to be looking at "concern about a potential threat" has having a 1-dimens

I think your metrics for concern about potential threats is a little skewed. You seem to be looking at "concern about a potential threat" has having a 1-dimensional score. Yes, there are more instances of death by hammer in the USA in a given year than there are terrorist attacks. But, the terrorist attacks have the potential for much larger impact (see links, below). Consider a 2-dimensional score for threat scenarios where we multiply likelihood of occurrence by potential impact for the following scenarios: Scenario A: Bludgeoned to death by a hammer. Scenario B: Terrorists recover a missing Cold-war era nuke, and detonate it over Iowa, during the winter. Effects are: nuclear explosion, EMP pulse disrupting power grid and electronics, disruption in home heating and food/medical supplies, downwind radioactive fallout over Chicago, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Philly, Boston, New York, Baltimore, DC, etc.. Scoring (pulling these numbers out of my arse for illustration purposes): Scenario A: 6000 occurrences per year * 1.2 deaths per occurrence = 12000 Scenario B: 0.2 terrorist occurrences per year * (10 million fatalities + ((0.5 fatality / endangered) * 150 million endangered) = 17 million As you can see, the terrorism is a lot more serious than hammers (or kittens). And, something like the NSA program could catch these potential large-impact events, because there are a lot of realistic and very scary scenarios: (A short list from some quick duckduckgo-ing) http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1002/20130325/deadly-virus-sample-goes-missing-texas-lab.htm http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/1002/20130325/deadly... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ksYDuIuuAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ksYDuIuuAE http://www.cfr.org/weapons-of-terrorism/loose-nukes/p9549 http://www.cfr.org/weapons-of-terrorism/loose-nukes/p9549 http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Los-Alamos-can-t-find-two-vials-of-plutonium-2608951.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Los-Alamos-can-t-find-two... http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/usa-lost-tons-nuclear-weapon-uranium http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/usa-lost-tons-nuclea... http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/17483/8-nuclear-weapons-us-has-lost http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/17483/8-nuclear-weapons-u... http://rense.com/general33/mss.htm http://rense.com/general33/mss.htm http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9355413/ns/health-infectious_diseases/t/plague-infected-lab-mice-missing-new-jersey/#.Ucnk7_nOnbM http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9355413/ns/health-infectious_disea... P.S. Hello, NSA! I'm guessing this comment has gotten caught in some of your filters. I just want to say, keep up the good work. My brother-in-law works at Fort Mead, too. -Updated for grammar.