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"So, who provided them with the message from Facebook? Sounds to me like GCHQ/NSA had access to this message all along....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30206359"
They did have the data well in advance but it was buried in amongst a load of old crap. It took a few weeks to search for it and recover it, then a further 6 to 10 days to clear it for release.
The problem with harvesting everything is that you are not targeting or searching in a discriminate manner. Once you have this monolithic chunk of data you then have to mine it and in this case it was not done in a timely efficient manner (too much to do real time and hey, we want everything anyway). All in all I feel that there approach to collecting everything means that they are less likely to get any positive hits.
Ask any of those people that download any and every program / film /MP3 they can from 'warez sites' . It is not long before you can't see the woods for the trees.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
