Unfortunately, as much as they want to do damage control, these companies are legally gagged from really talking about it. Redacted

Although suspected for a long time, these recent revelations confirm that you should assume that all emails, chats, telephone calls, SMS text messages, Facebook posts, Tweets, even Skype videochats, are being logged and stored. Doesn't really matter if you're using services from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Verizon, AT&T, Vonage, etc. The NSA claims that they have procedures in place to avoid collecting the information of Americans because NSA is prohibited by law from domestic operations and "spying" on Americans, but c'mon, who are they kidding? It's only been about decade since this kind of information collection was considered totally unacceptable by these same agencies.

We're all familiar with the housing bubble and the tech bubble, etc., but we totally miss the intelligence gathering bubble that has grown since 9/11. Government agencies have swelled and hundreds of private companies have sprung up in the name of gathering "intelligence". Granted, much of it is directed towards overseas threats, but so much of it is putting friends and family under the microscope, too.

I'm particularly disappointed that the government has forced Microsoft to build some sort of "back door" into Skype. When it originally came out, it's automatic use of strong encryption and the decentralized peer-to-peer nature of its routing made it an attractive alternative for communication.

Even good old postal mail is not immune. Largely due to the anthrax attacks, the information on the outside of every piece of mail is scanned and recorded now by the USPS and the information stored forever.

I think we'll have to go back to Cold War tactics to communicate with friends and family now. I'll have to start scouting out "dead drop" locations to pass secret messages. Now where did I pack away that trench coat and Fedora hat...