> Note the qualifier at the end. He's claiming that the NSA can read the emails of anyone once they know the address. The implications are that investigation an

> Note the qualifier at the end. He's claiming that the NSA can read the emails of anyone once they know the address. The implications are that investigation and surveillance are done when a target is specified. Those certainly are not the implications. He explicitly explains that all data from all people is always ingested by default. The surveillance is already happening right now. He needs the email address (or other information, note Snowden's reference to a "selector") in order to query the already monumental database of information and possibly to pull in future collections. But this isn't magical. Knowing an email address doesn't mean you can decrypt secured messages. It does mean they can access information gathered from their sources of which Gmail is a known source. And re: Why They Go Looking - Snowden says this: It’s getting to the point, you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they could use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer. > If President Obama doesn't use barack.obama@gmail.com from a known IP address, then his emails are essentially hidden from the NSA. Exactly.