> In between those extremes you present, there are the huge number of people who at one point or other does something that might make them blackmail targets if

> In between those extremes you present, there are the huge number of people who at one point or other does something that might make them blackmail targets if some future administration needs something from them, their family, their friends or their employer, or that have carried out any kind of activism or political or religious activity that might brand them in the future. Well, you say this as if actually doing any of these things would be necessary to end up on the hit-list of a future tyranny. You yourself provide the clues that NSA surveillance is not necessary, however. Do you think everyone caught up in McCarthy's witchhunt was really a Communist? Stuff like storage of Internet data here would be a 'nice-to-have' for a future tyranny, but not at all a requirement. The stuff that I do have to hide I don't let on the Internet unprotected, but it's because I don't trust the ISP or the web service that would hold the data, not because I'm worried about NSA. Our modern deep-connected life is already a despot's wet dream, just ask Aaron Hernandez, who was caught completely without need for NSA involvement. I do think you're 100% right with indefinite data storage being the concern. However if data storage of some form is implemented, it's probably way better (from a future dystopia POV) that they focus on retaining all-of-the-Internet for a short amount of time, rather than interesting-parts-of-the-Internet indefinitely.