The actions, said a second U.S. official briefed on them, were the work of overzealous NSA employees or contractors eager to prevent any encore to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Horseshit. This "they were just doing their jobs too well" line is just another way to sweep all of this under the rug.
It also fails to explain parallel construction. Every time the NSA tries to defend itself with these ridiculous claims made to earn PR brownie points, you can point at parallel construction to show that they are full of it.
Like the Manning/WikiLeak revelations, I kinda wonder at what point will the mainstream just get bored, move on, and essentially stop acknowledging the shock power of these revelations at some point...