As digital communications have multiplied, and NSA capabilities with them, the agency has shifted resources from surveillance of individual targets to the acquisition of communications on a planetary scale.

NSA surveillance is a complex subject - legally, technically and operationally.

The NSA is forbidden to 'target' American citizens, green-card holders or companies for surveillance without an individual warrant from a judge.

There is no reliable way to calculate from the number of recorded compliance issues how many Americans have had their communications improperly collected, stored or distributed by the NSA.

Snowden grants that NSA employees by and large believe in their mission and trust the agency to handle the secrets it takes from ordinary people - deliberately, in the case of bulk records collection, and 'incidentally,' when the content of American phone calls and e-mails are swept into NSA systems along with foreign targets.

I have no evidence of any relationship between IRS and NSA.