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The revelation that the National Security Agency is collecting our phone records has generated considerable outrage, but phone call metadata is just the beginning of what our nation’s spooks could gather from our mobile carriers if they put their minds and resources to the task. The carriers don’t just know whom we are calling, when and where. They have the infrastructure in place that allows them to track the websites we visit and the applications we use on our phones and tablets. They know all of this because it’s their job to know. When our phones connect to the internet they don’t just magically grok with Google or Facebook. That data is routed through carrier network cores, where packet-sniffing, traffic-shaping, and content optimization engines lie in wait. And — at least in the past — they’ve actually put such monitoring software directly onto our phones (more on that in a bit).

The United States government has been hacking into computers in China and Hong Kong for years, former government contractor Edward Snowden told the South China Morning Post.

Snowden said the National Security Agency has carried out hacking attacks against nonmilitary targets since 2009, with the newspaper citing "unverified documents." He said the targets of these attacks included Chinese university and public officials, businesses and students. Snowden believes there are "hundreds" of NSA hacking targets based in Hong Kong and mainland China, and there are more than 61,000 hacking operations worldwide, according to the Post's report. “We hack network backbones – like huge internet routers, basically – that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one,” said Snowden.

US critical infrastructure - which ranges from telecommunications to water to energy supplies - is not well prepared to handle a destructive cyberattack, the top U.S. general in charge of cybersecurity said.

"On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being strongly defended, our critical infrastructure's preparedness to withstand a destructive cyberattack is about a three based on my experience," Alexander, also in charge of the U.S. military's Cyber Command, wrote in the statement prepared for the Senate Appropriations Committee for a hearing on cybersecurity. Alexander said it was vital to have a strong Defense Department role in cyberspace in light of what he called real and growing threats.

Following revelations about the federal government’s surveillance programs, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation will tell a House Judiciary panel June 13 that law enforcement must stay “a step ahead of criminals and terrorists” while still heeding Americans’ civil liberties.

FBI Director Robert Mueller doesn’t address the National Security Agency programs directly, but his written testimony for a previously-scheduled oversight hearing is all the more relevant in the wake of last week’s news. Some critics are unlikely to find harmony between Mueller’s comments and the government’s activities. “Following the rule of law and upholding civil liberties and civil rights make all of us safer and stronger,” Mueller says in prepared testimony. “In the end, we will be judged not only by our ability to keep Americans safe from crime and terrorism, but also by whether we safeguard the liberties for which we are fighting and maintain the trust of the American people.”