So why exactly does the government need to know my e-mail address book?

[davidn3600]

The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device with information stored on remote servers.

Rather than targeting individual users, the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world’s e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and to map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets.

During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers, according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation. Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document, correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-collects-millions-of-e-mail-address-books-globally/2013/10/14/8e58b5be-34f9-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_print.html

[Luminous Animal]

1. Gotta know whether or not you fraternize with foreigners...

[Art_from_Ark]

5. Do they count me as a "foreigner"

since I'm living in a foreign country?

[elfin]

2. Maybe they're looking for evil geezer granny ME

But I doubt I am there.

Only have twelve "friends" FB - all family. I believe in keeping a low profile.

[Heather MC]

3. You know with all the Penis enlargement emails I receive I have to say I am worried

[leveymg]

4. Universal profiling

[Demo_Chris]

6. So they know where to send the drones. nt

[RB TexLa]

7. Your post answered your own question

the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world’s e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and to map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets.

[Bonobo]

8. "But private companies invade privacy too, blah, blah, blah..."

"You give away your own privacy willingly on Facebook, blah blah blah"

People that say that seem to forget that FB doesn't have the power to tax you, imprison you, or kill you.

[PSPS]

9. I presume that's a rhetorical question since, obviously, they don't.

But according to the swooners and apologists, it's all good because ... well, I guess it always falls back onto the old list:

1. This is nothing new
2. I have nothing to hide
3. What are you, a freeper?
4. But Obama is better than Christie/Romney/Bush/Hitler
5. Greenwald/Flaherty/Gillum/Apuzzo/Braun is a hack
6. We have red light cameras, so this is no big deal
7. Corporations have my data anyway
8. At least Obama is trying
9. This is just the media trying to take Obama down
10. It's a misunderstanding/you are confused
11. You're a racist
12. Nobody cares about this anyway / "unfounded fears"
13. I don't like Snowden, therefore we must disregard all of this
14. Other countries do it

[Th1onein]

10. I'm so sick of these arrogant MFers poking into my life.

It's NONE of their business. When will they get that?