Through a simple subpoena or unwarranted access, vast amounts of personal information on individuals may be accessible to government authorities, much of which would have been previously inaccessible. Tactics such as these are regularly used to discover the identities of journalists' sources by gaining access to telephone and email logs so surveillance creates a hostile environment for free speech.
Over the years, governments in the US and Europe permitted our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to design vulnerabilities into our systems. Starting with the Clinton administration and later by standards developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, we designed our communications systems to provide wide-scale surveillance capabilities to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
via guardian.co.uk