The revelations this past weekend concerning the extent of the NSA's abilities have been disturbing to say the least (ProPublica, The Guardian, NY Times). On top of its ability to record massive amounts of internet traffic for its own review, new reports indicate the government has, for at least the past decade, paid companies covertly for privileged "backdoor access" into their systems and encryption standards. In practice, this means secure communications with banks, email, and other websites are all likely easily readable by the NSA, and many or all commercial encryption products do not protect against government eyes. While this possibility has been known for some time and asserted by many conspiracy theorists, these reports present credible evidence that the NSA actually engages in this behavior.

This news sent major ripples through the internet security community. The NSA has recruited many of the best minds in the field of cryptography for decades, and has lent its help in securing standards for protecting Americans' communications. The leaked documents show that the NSA carefully injects hidden vulnerabilities into these standards, and pays a large number of (so far unnamed) security companies to do the same. When asked about these revelations, Johns Hopkins cryptography professor Matthew Green reportedly said, "We had the assumption that they could use their capacity to make weak standards, but that would make everyone in the U.S. insecure... We thought they would never be crazy enough to shoot out the ground they were standing on, and now we're not so sure." Google's VP for security, Eric Grosse, when talking about Google's push for better encryption in light of these revelations said, “It’s an arms race. We see these government agencies as among the most skilled players in this game.”

Effectively, this means the government has an active wiretap on most if not all Americans that it can use at any time. They also have the capability to decrypt the majority of global internet traffic and record it indefinitely, meaning they could review any person's past internet history (and no, cache clearing and incognito mode don't help). This may sound ridiculous and like the stuff of hi-tech Hollywood thrillers, however as renowned security researcher Bruce Schneier pointed out in his blog, the capabilities of the NSA still remain largely unknown, and officials at all levels of the government have been caught in outright lies concerning their use.

The NSA has repeatedly lied about the extent of its spying program. James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, has lied about it to Congress. Top-secret documents provided by Edward Snowden, and reported on by the Guardian and other newspapers, repeatedly show that the NSA's surveillance systems are monitoring the communications of American citizens. The DEA has used this information to apprehend drug smugglers, then lied about it in court. The IRS has used this information to find tax cheats, then lied about it. It's even been used to arrest a copyright violator. It seems that every time there is an allegation against the NSA, no matter how outlandish, it turns out to be true.

Source: Schneier on Security

Schneier has been actively involved in the Snowden leak, reviewing many source documents himself. He has expressed very eloquently the problems that occur when we can no longer trust in our government, and his views about the US government's betrayal of the internet.

The most disturbing part since the beginning of Snowden debacle has been the official responses of President Obama, Clapper, and the various congressmen that have commented on the leaks. They choose careful wording that would suggest American's are not being snooped upon, but even in the best cases they are still recording traffic or "metadata" about Americans' communications. Their outright lies, however, cross a line where the officials are knowingly deceiving the people they are elected to represent, and that feels an awful lot like fraud to me. When confronted with contradictory information, the officials generally balk and downplay what is being reported, as happened with Clapper's official response to Friday's reports:

...The stories published yesterday, however, reveal specific and classified details about how we conduct this critical intelligence activity. Anything that yesterday’s disclosures add to the ongoing public debate is outweighed by the road map they give to our adversaries about the specific techniques we are using to try to intercept their communications in our attempts to keep America and our allies safe and to provide our leaders with the information they need to make difficult and critical national security decisions.

Part of James Clapper's response to ProPublica's article.

For the NSA, it is a foregone conclusion that they should investigate any encrypted communications, even within America, and unfortunately for us that includes our phone calls, emails, and internet musings. It is my belief that this is a price far too high to pay for our supposed safety. Apart from the ongoing, unwarranted wiretapping of all US citizens and residents, it undermines our right to revolt against tyrannical practices. We need more whistleblowers to reveal these affronts to our privacy and freedoms, since it only becomes more clear with time that the government is not interested in public debate, much less in entertaining the idea of limiting their powers. The NSA's internal view has been made clear; information should be gathered at any cost, even if that means that no one (other than they) can communicate privately.

We officially live in the most successful surveillance state known to history, which is unpalatable enough on its own, and only made worse by the growingly despotic attitude of the US government. Americans need to demand a legal framework be established that defines appropriate intelligence gathering, and for ongoing checks and balances to their access and use. We don't have to look far back in our own history to find American citizens being persecuted by the government for ideas unpopular to the public or even high-power individuals. We must speak out for change now, before this is allowed to happen again.