We all knew in the back of our minds that the technology exists today which allows the government to monitor our communications. At least I knew this from the beginning of my career in computer engineering (1983) that this would be the ultimate use of the technology we worked on at the time. I have been reflecting on the growth of computer technology over these 30 years, from when we used 16K memory and 144k floppy disks to today when we can carry around 32Gigs in our pocket with Terabyte hard drives. I started when 300Baud modems were the fastest, and progressed through 1200Baud, 2400Baud, 9600Baud, etc. etc... Today we have high speed internet which permits Megabytes of data to be transmitted in seconds.
Information has become smaller, communications speeds have multiplied, the average man and woman has multiple CPU's embedded in the devices they use, their cars, their phones, their laptops, ipads, tablets, and coffee pots. We keep all of our information in computer systems, our searches and our contacts, and our personal and professional information.
What we learned from this leak is that our worst fears are actually the truth. Our trust in the system has been foolish, we are being pacified by excuses while our information is still analyzed. We should trust the government in other areas? With the IRS scandal we see that the system is more than willing to use the branches of the federal government to punish or reward based on political outlook. Our information may be used to profile us into political classifications, and I would bet it already is being used.
Hashem is the ultimate judge and the executioner of will. No matter what the system knows or doesn't know we can have trust in this fact.