My apologies for not getting back to you two days ago when I originally said I would - a close family member was in car accident and that took precedence over commenting on HN. That said, here's the response I promised:

You bring up a good point with regards to data retention. There's no way for me to know that 10 years down the line, the government won't devolve into some totalitarian nightmare and use that data they collected indiscriminately against me for nefarious purposes. I'd like to point out that this issue exists regardless of who controls the data. Data that, for example, Google collects on me now could be used against me 10 years down the line - maybe they start selling the data to credit bureaus or insurance agencies; maybe they get hacked and I end up getting my identity stolen or blackmailed or just plain robbed; maybe someone working for Google just decides that they don't like me and wants to make my life a living hell. The issue of having your confidence betrayed and privacy lost apply to every company you deal with, every company those companies deal with, etc., not just the NSA. I've never seen a website that posted its data retention policy, and even if it did I have no way of verifying that they follow it.

Based on Snowden's leaks, declassified court documents and public statements, we know that the NSA has some sort of internal compliance department to catalogue every time they screw up and collect against legally protected communication, they receive some degree of oversight from the DoJ and FISC, and they're at least supposed to be sending semi-annual compliance reports to the intelligence committees in Congress. The same can't be said for the millions of internet sites that collect our data. Maybe that's not enough oversight for the NSA - I won't argue with that. The NSA derives its legal authority to collect from the laws passed by elected representatives in Congress. If you don't like the fact that the NSA collects this data, write to your representatives and ask for them to revise or repeals the laws. If you think the collection may be vital to national security but are concerned about its misuse, call for more independent oversight with more transparency. I have absolutely no problem with you doing that, so long as you do so using informed opinions based on concrete evidence.

This gets back to the original argument that jonnybgood was making and I was defending: most of the articles that appear regarding the NSA are overhyped with a healthy dose of fear mongering. Articles that would be more accurately titled something like "The NSA collects vast amounts of data using X" instead are presented as "The NSA collects vast amounts of Americans' data using X". They conflate collection authorities and present it as fact to the audience. For example, the NSA is permitted by law (under certain interpretations - the EFF is looking to challenge this in court) to collect American cell phone metadata under Section 215, but is expressly forbidden from collecting American data under FAA 702 authorities. Leaked slides show that the PRISM program is their mechanism for collecting FAA 702 data. Any article claiming that the NSA is collecting such-and-such data against Americans but then goes on to cite PRISM as evidence is conflating the evidence. By presenting flawed or hyped up analysis to the public, all they do is stir up hype, anger, fear and distrust in the government.