Of course NSA puts USA at risk
Rewind to the 1980s or so, and USA had great international goodwill. Fast forward to late 1990s and the wheels started to fall off the bus, Now any goodwill is well and truly shot.
Yes folks, there was once a time when American backpackers in Europe would have a US flag on their backpacks and not the Canadian flag!
If 9/11 had happened in the 1980s, most people in the world would have been outraged. When it happened (2001), far more people could see the opposing point of view. If it happened now, probably most people would consider it nasty, but pretty much "ah well, you had that coming to you".
Now, I am not promoting terrorism or anything, but merely pointing out how far the old Stars and Stripes has slid down the flag pole in the last two decades or so.
A great part of that erosion of goodwill is the way USA arrogantly wades in where it does not belong, including making war for bugger-all reason, spying on everyone and screwing over everyone they can.
When they do this, they increase the hostility towards themselves and thus increase the likelihood of attacks.
Thus, what the NSA does certainly increases the risks the USA faces, particularly now that the USA's international power is fading and it's ability to enforce its bully tactics is decreasing.
The only way out is to start rebuilding the goodwill:
* Start playing nice with the other kids.
* Stop spying on them.
A good starting gesture would be to
* completely disband and purge the NSA.
* hold some public enquiries to find, and prosecute, any criminal acts by NSA.
* bulldoze that monstrous data centre in the desert.