alt Hacker NewsEvery single packet of information sent on the internet flows through NSA servers at some point. We've known this since Snowden. When I say the government has this information I do not mean that every single bureaucrat at any level of government can access this, but that the government as a whole has access to the information if they feel its worth using. We have limitations on how the government uses such powers but those are currently worth the paper they are written on and being ripped up left and right.
That's defeatist, although certainly what they'd like. The world is not the US.
Even if NSA captured and logged all internet traffic, they'd still only get a fraction of the information within without breaking all the encryption.
And even if they could break the crypto, the ability would only have any power if/when they acted on it. Which in turns reveals the capability to both normal people and other nation states.
The limitations aren't laws, it's the practical consequences.
Of course, having laws with actual teeth helps.