I have asked this same question myself. It's stunning that only one sys admin has come forth with this information. Further, politicians and higher business off

I have asked this same question myself. It's stunning that only one sys admin has come forth with this information. Further, politicians and higher business officials in companies usually don't know what computers are capable of, which leads me to believe that it's actually programmers who are suggesting that such horrifying systems be built (for example, no politician is going to say "let's make a copy of every piece of internet traffic everywhere." The programmer says "We can copy everything," and the politician says "Ok, do it"). The only excuse I could imagine that a programmer would tell themselves is "This is just my job, and I'm just building the software, but it's the government that's going to be using it, not me, so I've done nothing wrong."