The point at the beginning of the press release is that gigantic database doesn't exist. According to the government, they only collect data that has been authorized by a court, which includes large scale metadata collection like call logs or email headers passing through international cable landing sites in the US (collection that stopped in 2011 according to the leaked documents) together with full data with realtime monitoring from certain US-based internet companies for specific users under a surveillance court order.
Access to that data is severely restricted and audited according to this document.
It doesn't matter anyway, the burden is not on citizens to prove that the government is spying on them, the burden is on the government to prove to the citizens that it's no longer lying to the society.
I don't understand this argument. I know there were in fact no WMDs found in Iraq, but I believed the government when they said that they had reason to think there were.
So it turns out there weren't, and going in was a big mistake. Great, lets all viciously attack (I'm not saying you did this, but definitely many others with your same opinion have) the government for making a mistake.
And now we wonder why they try to lie and completely cover-up/distort reality. Because we as voting citizens are totally unwilling to forgive our elected officials for making mistakes.
Obviously that mistake was massive, tragic, and deadly. But it still was, I believe a, mistake. Maybe there's something to this issue that I don't know yet, but to me "according to the government" does not immediately correspond to "the government's blatant double-speaking lie".
There was plenty of evidence prior to the invasion that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, or that if they did they would be almost unusable because of age.
Information about this came out not only through organizations like the FAS (you may not have read about this in the NYTimes, but don't blame the opponents of the war for this), public statements by diplomats and civil servants (i.e. David Miller), the pressure to recall UN investigators (who were skeptical of the existence of such weapons), and evidence of deliberate fraud in pushing for war as in the yellowcake uranium setup, Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations on "mobile weapons factories", or Dick Cheney's efforts to take control of intelligence work when the results were skeptical of his claims that WMD existed.
The only actual evidence in favor of the hypothesis that Iraq might have WMD was that the country had not accounted to the UN investigators for the disposal of some dual-use chemicals the United States had sold them during the Iran-Iraq war. They claimed these materials were already destroyed and so could not document their destruction, which seems - in retrospect - to have been the case. Either way, if I remember correctly, these materials would have been almost if not totally unusable given their age.
I believed the government when they said that they had reason to think there were.
They did not just say they had reason to think there were, they said they were there:
Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention (August 26, 2002): "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Ari Fleischer, Press Briefing (January 9, 2003): "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
Gen. Tommy Franks, Press Conference (March 22, 2003): "There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."
Donald Rumsfeld, ABC Interview (March 30, 2003): "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
I don't know and presumably neither do you. I'm not saying we shouldn't question the government, I'm just saying we shouldn't automatically assume ulterior motives. Coming up with theories of ulterior motives is easy. Proving them is hard, and preventing them is even harder.
Access to that data is severely restricted and audited according to this document.