It's the tragedy of success in the privacy industry.
This type of argument contains the assumption that it would be too much trouble for them/not worth it to monitor an affluent anarchist or semi- anti-authortitarian with an above-average IQ.
We've seen that A) their resources are as virtually unlimited as their paranoia B) tech developments have driven down the cost of sophisticated surveilance strategies C) xkeyscore and all of the other releases is confirmation.
This type of argument does us all a disservice by subtly shaming those who care about state-surveilance of private (and peaceful) citizens who value their privacy and/or who exercise their right to actively participate in progressive movements that challenge the establishment.
We've already seen that the NSA actively targets people searching for privacy tools (e.g. Tails, Tor). The act of using a VPN is mildly interest-provoking, so it's far from crazy to suspect that someone might try to scrape everything happening there in case some of it is interesting.
You should not trust what people tell you over the internet.
How is/was this claim substantiated?
