[jrochkind1]

If the U.S. can do it, other entities can do it too.

I'd rather that the NSA were disclosing the vulnerabilities they discover to vendors, so they can be fixed.

Failing that, we rely on white hat researchers like those here (not to mention Snowden). They're doing really important, socially valuable, work. I wonder where they get their funding, we need a lot more of them. It's our job as software/hardware engineers to create secure software.