[zxcdw]

Just because it is possible to be very safe in theory and to some extent in practice doesn't mean that so will happen ifinitely from now on. People manage the data, people manage the access to the data and most importantly people make mistakes. Given that it is possible for the data to leak, there's a small probability for it happening, and thus it will happen eventually. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Murphy's law.

Also it's not just NSA doing this. Maybe in the US, but I assume that in Europe there are many similar centralized government databases full of information about people. And Asia.

The point is, given enough time the shit will hit the fan somewhere. No matter what. Don't try to deny this.

[tekacs]

Oh I don't doubt that it will somewhere - this is a reminder that others aren't going to stop doing it, though and also that of all the places, the NSA seems like an unlikely source of such leaks.

Also, whilst they undoubtedly keep data around awhile, it's not kept indefinitely, surely - it has a shelf life after all. Whilst someone might get this stuff wrong in the future, again, surely that would come about most likely due to some discontinuity in this process (like if they were forced to stop awhile and then continued, losing operational details in the process).