Except the government has openly admitted that the NSA spying ( data taken from microsoft etc )has not stopped or helped find a single terrorist. Also the data is kept permanently, not for 2 years. It is also used to create a profile of you, that can be used against you for any reason in say 10 years. I don't know how different the Aussie government is, but the American government will always tell us what they CAN do. People by ignorance assume that when the government says " we can only do this " that that is what they will do. But what actually happens is they tell us what they are allowed to do, and then without telling us they do a lot more than they are allowed. THey have grown to be MUCH more powerful than they ever should have, and even our founding fathers said they should never have close to the kind of power that they do. As with darkseeker, he is in the UK but it's the same situation. Our government cannot be trusted. If they lie about a couple things, who says they aren't lying with everything.