[thinkpad20]

I remember reading years ago about a giant data center being built in Utah for the NSA with the express purpose of collecting electronic data sent in the continental US. It was in Time magazine or something similar, and it wasn't really that big of a deal. Honestly, I think the reason that people cared so much this time was because of the drama of the story: the inside man who revealed thousands of secrets and then bolted to Russia, and the subsequent continuing drama where more information gets periodically released, etc.

Why are people so shocked and upset about the NSA, when they could have expressed the same outrage at the PATRIOT act, which has been around for a decade, and which is responsible for the legality of much of the NSA's recent history? The NSA is a spy agency. That's what they do. They're using every legal avenue they have to collect as much information as possible. To assume that they're doing anything less than everything possible within legal limits is naive.