Come on, people. Every developed country with a budget with the possible exception of Germany is doing the exact same thing as the US. It would be irresponsible of them not to.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/edward-snowden-acc...
Right now, they don't need a warrant and I bet it's already causing problems for some people because government employees misbehave when you give them a grey area like that. That's just a fact. And you're not gonna hear about it because people are powerless. They can't react to it because it will get them in more trouble.
Those who say that isn't true are the ones who haven't experienced it or are the ones taking advantage of others in similar ways.
And what makes it even worse is that the governments store all the data for years, maybe even decades. History has told us this is going to become a huge problem. For a lot of people. We may not live long enough to experience what can happen but it's just a matter of time. And this generation is responsible for it.
While free trade and open borders are a great thing, I often wonder if smaller countries is the way to go for the world.