Well it appears the NSA thread was deleted for whatever reason. I will assume it was deleted by the OP and not a moderator. However, I was in a nice back and forth with herp99 (I think?) and would like to continue it. The only thing we know for sure is that they can do these things. We don't know at all that they are interested in doing these things, that they are doing these things, etc. We can infer that they are not operating as a criminal intelligence agency due to the fact that people get away with criminal acts committed using the internet, for prolonged periods of time, without getting busted. Either the NSA is incapable of locating these people quickly, the NSA is not interested in giving the intelligence they have on these people to the FBI, or the NSA simply doesn't care about the crimes these people are committing. Your argument seems to be that because the NSA *can* do these things that they *must* be doing them. The only thing that we know for sure is that a leaked document says that the NSA can spy on Americans and turn over the intercepted information to the FBI if it pertains to a criminal investigation. If we find some documents saying that NASA is technically and legally allowed to construct a spaceship filled with cheese and blast it into the sun, do you think that means NASA therefor must be in the process of doing so? The fact that major targets using the internet to commit major crimes are not busted in short periods of time tells us that either the NSA is not capable of locating them in a short period of time or the NSA doesn't give a fuck about them. (or perhaps the NSA thinks busting such people will reveal their abilities and therefor they choose not to). You seem to be pretty certain that the NSA is operating as a criminal intelligence agency despite the fact that all we know is that they are capable of doing so. I am very familiar with Narusinsight super computers, they are not for monitoring financial networks or physical mail but rather are for performing communications interception (wiretapping) and traffic analysis (metadata analysis) on internet traffic on a massive scale. I don't think unconstitutional things can ever be legal. Something that is unconstitutional is inherently illegal. With all due respect it is getting annoying to be told to read a book or watch a video for a citation. If you want me to become aware of some particular bit of information, a direct link to it (preferably in text format) is your best bet. I did look up a court of limited jurisdiction and I read the entire paragraph wikipedia has on it, and it seems entirely irrelevant to what you are saying. I am not making claims about what they can or cannot do. I know that the NSA can perform massive traffic analysis and intercept huge amounts of communications. I am making claims about what they will or will not do, and my only claim really is that they will not operate as a criminal intelligence agency, which means they are not going to focus on intercepting the communications of criminals and forwarding them to the FBI. If they feel that doing so will be beneficial to one of their objectives they will do so, but if some random vendor on SR gets busted or not is of no concern to the NSA. If the vendor happens to be a politician who has taken actions that upset the NSA, then it is a different story though.