NSA Revelations: No Privacy

I managed a large Y2K project [recall that debacle]  for a major Telecom and Power company years ago.  I recall we used HP LAN Analyzers to test data transfer over a wide area LAN. These were not mearly technical signal analyzers, but actual data traps with encoding capability for pakatized signal data. Smrt Sniffer, Packet Capture, VM and editcap were a few of the tools in our quiver.  Though we did not decode email or other personal data we did have the ability to access the mail but internal vigilance and integrity precluded such snooping. At that time I could see the danger to each users privacy as this technology would naturally evolve. Knowing how the entire Internet is connected in a wide area LAN via NAP's I could see how easy it would be for NSA to trap data at each of the 11 current points: the legacy NAPs first built by the Military now called MAE's, and the newest NAP of America in Miami [a Tier 1] run by TerreNAP.
If NSA has Cisco Routers and other more advanced Equipment and pakatized data analyzers in these facilities, they do have access to the entire world's data. Within the Tier 1 TerreNAP in Miami all fiber optic data from South and Central America, Europe, and the Carribean can be captured and decoded. Add to that the data from the MAE's San Jose, Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago and there are  few other places that are inaccessible by Big Brother. China and Russia and the far East have been running on Legacy ATT Fiber cable since the 80's. 
Therefore, there is an endless supply of raw "Light Data' being shot all around the globe.  It really all comes down to the end user exercising control and restraint, and having Integrity. Who is using this data, and how are they using it?  Is it to protect America or to destroy folks with basic Core [Constitutional or Religious] beliefs opposite yours?
 Data can be used for proper protection or as a tool to intimidate. Today it seems like it is a bit of both. But in the hands of someone like the current Administration and it's 34 Czars there is no telling what this previously "Private information" is being used to achieve. This article

Secret to Prism success: Even bigger data seizure by Steve Braun Yahoo News 6/14/2013

leads off with a photo of Bush so as to lead the reader to the concept that Bush did all of this, and Obama is just using the tools Bush and Cheney installed. That is what Obama wants you to think. Again, do you recall Bush using this power so blatantly against the American population?
The past few years have left me scratching my head as to why certain politicians who we believed to be in one camp or another seem to change sides overnight. How could this happen? Then comes the opening of Pandora's Box : "PRISM". and it all comes into focus.
Say I am an elected official who on the surface is a spokesman for the Left.  I champion a particular Bill like Immigration.  I have the support of my constituents.  I get a call that I am to meet with representatives of the current Administration.  At this meeting I am shown facts; figures; email; Personal Documents, bank accounts, and private conversations of everything I have said or done since High School.  I am made to feel very uncomfortable with some of this data because if it were made public, out of context, it would not be very flattering, and it may lead my constituents to lose the trust they had placed in me.
I am told that this information will remain in the hidden data vaults if I could just take a slightly different approach to the Bill I am sponsoring. It could still get passed but with some slight amendments or riders that the opposition wanted. 
It is a grave challenge.  I weight the options.  I conclude it is a Godfather Offer knowing that  "Drone" diplomacy is very much alive and well. Further, the holder of the data may also show me details of what happened to others who did not capitulate.  I have a wife and children, and I am looking forward to a long life in career politics.
 I agree this is all hypothetical and sounds like "Conspiracy Theory thinking" . I fully accept the arguments of detractors of this posting, but given the latest NSA revelations and recent events in D.C. it is very much within the realm of possibility.