The Prismer (with apoligies to patrick mcgoohan -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prisoner)

One of the points about #Prism is that the various national security agencies (#NSA, #GCHQ etc) are using it mostly to get meta-data on conversations involving foreigners - however, the conversations must be between those foreigners and citizens, so they are, by trivial corollary, getting meta-data on citizens. The 2nd conclusion is that between agencies who cooperate (e.g. UK and US), they can merge the two views to get a view on everyone, without even breaking their own constitutions (well, ok the UK doesn't have one). So the step to a "global market in espionage sigint" has been largely completed. of course, the irony is that the real enemies of freedom have had enough tradecraft to avoid leaving meta-data trails, since ancient roman times (e.g. undercover religions - living in "crypts") so they won't show up - no, the old adage is the opposite of the case: if you are innocent, nothing of yours will be hidden - if you are guilty of something, it ain't going to show up on any of their screens unless you are seriously stupid. Of course, the most guilty of all, the people wasting our tax money on this system, instead of doing their job (humint on real bad guys) and turning our society into a toxic moral slag heap, they sure as hell won't shw up on any screens either - they all are too busy looking at all the espionage porn of normal peoples' lives to get caught by each other - or do any good whatsoever.