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Snowden directly answers this -- he claims NSA analysts can get away with it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n... and

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-n...

This is getting overlooked, but a 2009 NYT article claimed an NSA analyst looked through Bill Clinton's email out of curiosity (he was caught). I think this is very revealing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html?pagewanted=a...

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Many government and private sector systems share these types of problems.

Think Facebook and the DMV. As controls mature around the process, trolling through the data becomes relatively easy to enforce. My understanding is that in most state DMVs, looking up the driving record of a public figure or similarly flagged individual by some clerk is immediately detected, and "curiosity" lookups on friends and family eventually get caught by audit.

There is no problem. This spying is being done for economic advantage, not to "protect us."

This information is being passed on to American corporations. This is very old news.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/070200-02.htm

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