XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

[Angrboda]

I read a statistic once that said that 80% of all perpetrators of violent crimes in the U.S. are never convicted. The moral being, the odds are in your favor. Systems like this apply to such massive pools of data, that the possibility of extracting the right information out of the heap, in time, and enough of it such that you can act on it are incredibly small. Even if you're a chatty Cathy and doing something legitimately wrong, the chances of being detected are infinitesimal. Add to that the fact that they prioritize the investigation of the data in ways that further reduce the chances of you getting caught, and what you have is a crime detection system that's all show and no go. Given that they know this, and know that traditional investigative methods are far more profitable, one has to wonder why they create such systems in the first place. Are these paper tigers just a form of deterrent?