No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A. - NYTimes.com

"When Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, sat down with President Obama at the White House in April to discuss Syrian chemical weapons, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and climate change, it was a cordial, routine exchange.

The National Security Agency nonetheless went to work in advance and intercepted Mr. Ban’s talking points for the meeting, a feat the agency later reported as an “operational highlight” in a weekly internal brag sheet. It is hard to imagine what edge this could have given Mr. Obama in a friendly chat, if he even saw the N.S.A.’s modest scoop. (The White House won’t say.)

But it was emblematic of an agency that for decades has operated on the principle that any eavesdropping that can be done on a foreign target of any conceivable interest — now or in the future — should be done. After all, American intelligence officials reasoned, who’s going to find out?"
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This highlights the problem with spy agencies which also plagues police organizations. The internal cultures of these organizations,  like any bureaucracy, seek to expand their power through internal competitive pressure and the natural desire for the organization to grow. This concept was described by Max Weber in his seminal 19th Century work "The Theory of Socio-economic organization.