EFF Shining a Light on NSA Surveillance

A July 31, 2018 post by the Electronic Frontier Foundation - Eight AT&T Buildings and Ten Years of Litigation: Shining a Light on NSA Surveillance - discusses the on-going surveillance of American citizens by the NSA. The post states in part:

Two reporters recently identified eight AT&T locations in the United States—towering, multi-story buildings—where NSA surveillance occurs on the backbone of the Internet. Their article showed how the agency taps into cables, routers, and switches that handle vast quantities of Internet traffic around the world. Published by The Intercept, the report shines a light on the NSA’s expansive Internet surveillance network housed inside these sometimes-opaque buildings.

As the years press on, the picture becomes clear: the NSA’s mass surveillance operation is deeply embedded inside our country’s Internet and telecommunications infrastructure. Now, thanks to The Intercept’s reporting, we have a better idea of where this surveillance takes place. For many of us, it’s in our own backyards.
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When discussing national level surveillance, some may say if you have nothing to hide, why does it matter if the government monitors what you do? There are many reasons that a person with nothing to hide might object to being the subject of government surveillance, but I think that foremost among these reasons is that surveillance can be - and too often is - misused.

Heidi Boghosian in her presentation "Spying on Democracy: Government Surveillance Corporate Power and Public Resistance" University of California Television (UCTV) discusses this in some detail.