> NSA will suddenly have a ton more "extremists" to look at.

Let's say that in NSA's dictionary, extremist means "Anyone with even a small potential to alter the course of society, the economy, or technology."

Those people, plus a comfortable margin, might be 5% of the population. The NSA probably has the resources to examine all the electronic communications and do high-quality transcription of verbal communications of that 5%.

Even trying to make that targeting more selective would be, in the NSA's worldview "counterproductive."