And yet strangely, I'm not surprised. There seems to be a race by intelligence agencies to collect as much data as possible in recent years (well, the past decade). And while in the West, the Americans is leading the pack, the others aren't shining away without a fight.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it has become more a sport than a national security measure by these agencies. They have gone cocky, so to speak, thinking that because they are government agencies they are above the law that regular hackers supposedly are not.

How do we quantify who is "leading the pack"? This would assume we have representative coverage of different countries' activities and that is certainly not true.

It's all about connecting the dots. They want to gather as much information as possible and try to get a better picture of what each individual thinks, does and his/her social ties. The forums are just a piece of the puzzle.