I read an interesting piece the other day.  It posited that the true goal of mass data collection programs like those run by the NSA and GCHQ is not to stop terrorism but to gather information and track financial transactions so that more taxes could be collected.  I think the only piece of evidence supporting the supposition was the fact that the data will be kept &quot;forever&quot;, so it wasn&#x27;t the most convincing piece, but I liked the unorthodox nature of the idea.  I think it was on ZeroHedge but I can&#x27;t find it at the moment.