The news about the NSA watching all phone calls is supposedly targeted to tracking the source #, destination #, and duration. As such, no conversation content was discovered other than through formal legal requests. However, news broke that the NSA is tracking e-mails, etc with direct access into Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. That is just NOT correct. No company would ever allow that. A court order is needed to access any of that data.
However, the NSA could/does direct Internet traffic from the Internet backbone. Thus, the name Prism. Even if this scenario is valid, the data over https should be 100% encrypted. The value comes in watching where traffic goes to (IP to IP address). These are signals to the NSA, CIA, and FBI that allow for further focus.
Observations have been made that this re-direction only applies to foreign nationals but the "watching" could easily be expanded to domestic accidentally or deliberately.
The best way to circumvent these efforts include: 1) Using anonymous access from a library or a FedEx Office computer, 2) For phones, use a temporary mobile phone # versus a plan. When you are in motion, it is very difficult to trace behavior.
The above tips are pretty much common sense.
It will be interesting to see what is discovered next.
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