It's basically a throwback to the era of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI keeping files on everyone of interest, although now it's being done hand in hand with the NSA's mass collection system. Which is still splitting all fiber optic traffic at the major domestic nodes and piping it off for collection, isn't it? As revealed well before Snowden actually:<p><a href="https://privacysos.org/technologies_of_controlnaurus/" rel="nofollow">https://privacysos.org/technologies_of_controlnaurus/</a><p>The question more people should be asking: <i>How can this kind of vacuum-style, society wide surveillance exist alongside promises of democratic governance, and parallel to constitutional guarantees that the government will stay out of our business unless we are suspected to have committed a crime?</i><p>Every time I look at this stuff, I can't help thinking that our political leaders in Congress and the bureaucrats at the FBI must be really envious of the kind of power states like Saudi Arabia and China have over their domestic populations, and would create such a system here if they could.