[Nick Hopkins and Matthew Taylor reporting on how to build your own NSA](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/private-firms-mass-surveillance-technologies):

> AMES describes Cerebro as a “core technology designed to monitor and analyse in real time communications … including SMS (texting), GSM (mobile calls), billing data, emails, conversations, webmail, chat sessions and social networks.”

> The company brochure makes clear this is done by attaching probes to internet cables. “No co-operation with the providers is required,” it adds.

> “Cerebro is designed to store several billions of records – metadata and/or communication contents. At any time the investigators can follow the live activity of their target with advanced targeting criteria (email addresses, phone numbers, key words),” says the brochure.

A lot of people have contacted me asking why I am so concerned with what government spies are doing, I think this article sums up my concern. What the government can do, so too can the private sector. Read the article, and then start down the encryption process.