After 9/11 Congress freaked out and started throwing shit-tons of money at agencies like the NSA. Understandable, though the leadership of those agencies was/is run by the same US security establishment that was blindsided by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Arab Spring, ISIS, and the recent coup attempt in Turkey.
Money doesn't go begging in D.C. The agencies started hiring contractors right and left. The contractors rushed to hire employees right and left. It was a Gold Rush. In light of that, and of the fact that government agencies never, ever, grow smaller, occasional leaks and document dumps are going to be part of the scene for the foreseeable future. They've cobbled together a Brobdingnagian apparatus with what seems to be minimal oversight. Me, I'd rather see them become smaller and smarter than to continue to gather more data than they can effectively deal with.
