The revelations this past weekend concerning the extent of the NSA's abilities have been disturbing to say the least (ProPublica, The Guardian, NY Times). On top of its ability to record massive amounts of internet traffic for its own review, new reports indicate the government has, for at least the past decade, paid companies covertly for privileged "backdoor access" into their systems and encryption standards. In practice, this means secure communications with banks, email, and other websites are all likely easily readable by the NSA, and many or all commercial encryption products do not protect against government eyes. While this possibility has been known for some time and asserted by many conspiracy theorists, these reports present credible evidence that the NSA actually engages in this behavior.