Is there anybody here that doesn't assume they're analyzing everything?
When the Wikileaks leak happened, there was an article (or comment on HN) about how seemingly obvious things are still classified. Say that US govt. knows about the crimes some dictator is committing against his own people. The locals in that country know it (and experience it). The world, including US citizens know it or can very easily find out, yet the fact that US government knows is classified.
The reason is because an official acknowledgement would also demand some sort of official denouncement or some other similar action in order to maintain a certain propaganda-ready image (universal support for human rights, democracy & freedom promotions etc etc)
This still only applies to a small portion of classified material, much of which is simply subject to classification inflation.
They can always go back and analyze later.
Old-time "usenet" users have to assume that all of usenet got hoovered up while it was going on, and that material is pretty carefully indexed and categorized. Any participants of "alt.tasteless", for example, should never run for major office, as whatever they posted will come back to haunt them. By "haunt them", I mean that once elected, they may get their arms twisted on critical issues. Let's recall what happened to Representative Jane Harman (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-april-28-2009/your-gov...) - Harman "was caught on wiretap, but not punished, so as not to erode her support for wiretaps."
That guy that posted all that gay pr0n to the straight-pr0n groups in the early 90s had better watch his back, too.
The idea is probably there is a small subset that is analysed pretty heavily and a lot else that's just retained on the theory it might be of interest someday.
The danger though is it allows a bit of a "show me the man and I'll find you the crime" mentality....