and dont forget theft. they steal and save it or it pops up on the other side of the world with someone elses name on it. that is primarily what all the surveillance is for. they sure arent catching and stopping any bad guys with it.

This story is a big one in its own right. If you consider the premise that allowed this relatively isolated situation to become what it is , then apply a bit of obvious logic by extension, a window opens through which can be seen a much bigger picture ..... story, that by comparison literally dwarfs the big story on patents & inventions.

The premise is pretty simple in concept; require a suitable filter or check point so to speak through which must pass any person of the masses who wishes to avail themselves to the implied public service situated on the other side of the filter. The simple premise requires an ever increasing and complex array of oblivious worker bees on the public side of the filter and a much smaller system of management / administrative personnel on the private side where is found the grand payoff.

From the historical view, a select few examples include the postal system, US, Royal and the like, followed by what began as the telegrapgh and then evolved through radio, telephone, leased-line, television and eventually public internetwork and "cloud-based" services. Yeah, sure, it would be nice to believe that a postmaster would never steam open so as to covertly inspect the words or other contents of parcels passing through their watch ..... and Ma Bell and it's AT&T spawn would never eavesdrop or decode the private voice and data messages its public customers transmiited along its globetrotting web of wired and wireless communication ... but consider the payoff for them if willing to temporarily forego morality and clever enough to derive power from the knowledge secretly gained as a result?

Read the biographies of famous dead people and see that while many of them are traditionally characterized as intelligent, upon closer inspection whatever intellect they posssed was such that it allowed them, as needed, to be clever and opportunistic while generally viewed outwardly as personable, perhaps folksy or even humble, but inwardly, they were closet-style ruthless or otherwise capable of selectively compromising common decency and morality when not doing so stood in the way of particular gain for themselves personally or the organizations with which they fraternized; patented theft and fraud services which the public at large is generally required to use in going about their daily lives :)