Every encrypted use of the internet to and from the US would be of interest.
All the layers and data about the 'safe' encrypted message would be kept. Just using encryption would ensure further investigation and long term logging.
The consumer hardware is connected to a very tame 'internet', with tame telcos, tame VPN providers, tame crypto providers and issues like the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act
The network as provided is fully open to the gov. Use a tame consumer OS or more interesting OS, your packets still flow and a few govs work very hard to collect all.
The advice that can be given by some top ex US mil/gov official is the low cost of hardware for ex gov staff and former gov staff now working for 'other' global banking competitors.
A lot of ex gov staff around the world know how telco and banking systems work and are for hire. What was once "five eyes" with shared bases global expensive is now banking sector affordable. Everybody now has the ability to buy some telco sector insight.
What can be done re consumer hardware? You have to walk, drive, fly to your bank and work out what product is best for you face to face.
Too many groups, people, ex staff, former staff have the same insights into networks. eg identify US unreported offshore accounts? Just watch people in the US logging into 'encrypted' super secret offshore accounts via that US telco as they look at statements, move cash around.
That unique ip/encryption stream would stand out. Over time all a bank needs to report is dual citizens and people on holiday. Everybody of interest is safe, meeting face to face with correct paper work :)

People can work out a vast complex network exists. All that national spread of small factory complexes with just in time delivery and payment.
Add in a tail end network thats waiting on international parts delivery.
So they find their way onto trusted systems and go for the main complex.
Finding a way in they use skill and poor design to transfer out 'plans'.
Some time later they spend big trying to make the plans work. Their own well funded lab comes back empty. Something is wrong, missing or it was never a real project.
To make the above work you need a vast amount of tame press telling the world about sloppy code, successful intrusions, countries getting away with decades of digital design over a few short years.
At a lower level its all about vendor lock in, ensuring the sale of that next version and then chasing the intrusion clean up work.
Systems are open to the net for a reason - as bait or to rent seek clean up contracts.

Re"still maintain these ICBMs" is the key. Generations now expect a good paying job working on 1960's-90's tech for decades at a security level and gov pay grade.
Overtime they have turned that some of that gov pay grade into contractor positions.
The staff then have car, house, debt, hobbies - ie totally locked into the shareholder military industrial complex. Just as profiled for the position.
Thats a lot of contractor boondoggle and maintenance rent seeking over decades too. Kind of hard for the political class not to accept huge donations over many terms.
The systems stay, the workers stay, the staff stay, the profits are locked in and expected every year over generations.

They have a fence around the site and the hatch system is secure. The electronic code system would have only been been seen by a few people to give the right code to the right site at the right time (one time pad).
The older staff would have worked out every control panel and lockout device due to boring mission hours and skills.
So you need the code sent in, a few people to send the code, more than 1 person to turn the key/get launch site ready.
The main issue is if the entire command falls under the influence of a faith based cult.
Lets hope the contractors who run the medical tests on the staff look for changes in the basic personality types used at the sites.
Other people would have the mission to track all staff off base 24/7 - phones, reading material, net use, new friends.

The gov cares as the pay TV monopoly zones see having their wealth protected from all other providers.
You pay for months of pay tv to enjoy a new show per season. You dont get to enjoy each show from another nations computer company in near real time.
So expect to see a lot of pay tv efforts locally and internationally to protect each networked thiefdom .

Yes with the flow of cash old and new laws become an option. So you have a rush to set all aspects of streaming, p2p, downloading to a cash "moving" criminal legal standing.

Over time you link banner in with a cookie, flash cookie and database cookie folders.
ie as with the first gen flash cookies you get a a unique ID and can be tracked online for a while.
What was once online marketing activities in 100KB deep in a browser is now todays police work.

It makes searching domestic telco data legal under the "reasonable articulable suspicion" part.
A few hops of friends or the wrong net logs or phone history and most people could be found to be an "agent of a foreign power, associated with an agent of a foreign power, or "in contact with, or known to, a suspected agent of a foreign power"".
Then you get all the metadata legally. The old standard of a "reasonable articulable suspicion" is much lowered by easy new domestic color of law :)
No judge needed and you get the first two hops of tracking friends/family for free. The "foreign power" part ensures any contact with the outside world is an instant total data collection win. Bulk collection is now legal and the laws around it weaker re your internet or financial records. The three hop 'the corporate store" collections showed the real past efforts safe from any Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The House's NSA bill could allow more spying than ever. You call this reform? (26 March 2014)
http://www.theguardian.com/com...
Raiding the "Corporate Store": The NSA's Unfettered Access to a Vast Pool of Americans' Phone Data (08/02/2013)
https://www.aclu.org/blog/nati...
Welcome to the legal lock box of all your calls and aspects of your net use over decades.

Yes they are really only part of the intelligence community and report to each other. Mass surveillance programs brings new funding and political standing in that growing community. To have data and present it before other agencies is the only political win. No more doing limited support work of other appropriate agencies, via mass surveillance programs they get to set and shape real missions.
A change, new role, more power and more funding over other traditional agencies.
The problem is nations or groups worth real surveillance have be aware of the UK/US telco tech efforts since the 1950-60's so costly mass surveillance is the only method to keep the funds flowing and projects growing.
Will domestic mass surveillance be stopped? No it will be renamed, offered as support for other law enforcement tasks, hidden deep in the mil or passed to the UK or Canada. After a few project name changes all will be good again as it was after legal questions in the 1970's.
"Church Committee"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Some AC sockpuppets really, really want another long war somewhere. Iraq, Somalia, what was Yugoslavia, Pakistan, Libya, Afghanistan with occupations, drones, shared sites, pirate/rebel hunt, training missions, pipeline protection, base help just will not keep the gov and private military industrial complex going. They need to sell and rent seek on an endless "Cold" war scale again.
So expect to see a flood of perfectly packaged news stories from different regions hinting at the need for constant support, spending, supplies, experts and boots on the ground for decades.

Re "plant from the early 60s relates here"
Plants often come form nuclear reactor designs and prototypes from the 1950's and 1960's.
We are now seeing the results of a very old sector trying to rebuild itself with new parts. Replacement steam generator plugging (failed pressure test and needed to be plugged). We have seen issues with air tightness of the reactor containments, issues in the re circulation pipe systems, cracks in the core shroud.
Then you have the complex costs of cleaning out a boiling water reactor and a pressurized water reactor ie radioactive steam moves via the entire plant system, tritium leaks, spent fuel storage costs vs limited decommissioning funds. Moving to dry storage and then moving all the regular waste from decommissioning and dismantlement (disposal license). The old plants waste size adds up and all you have a few Class A waste sites? Class B and C waste with more long-lived and short-lived radionuclides can just wait? Weld anomalies, through wall corrosion, corrosion of steel containments, walls of steel containments below the minimum design thickness. The old plants have containment degradation, metal pressure boundary corrosion incidents. Add in the fun of uprated license extensions to 2040+ with a power increase (Stretched Power Uprate).

Re "Doesn't sound very constitutional to me. What have we become?"
In the past the GCHQ would do everything it could to stay out of court closed or open. No methods, no logs, no experts with no pasts to confirm documents as found, decrypted.
Any information gathered would have to be undergo parallel construction by other services or methods to remove any signal or decoding aspects.
The problem for the US is the very public talk of " all the phone records into a lockbox" to be reconstructed anytime over a persons life.
Within the US there is limited access to the top political policy setting. Other groups within the US domestic and more international law enforcement may not like a signals conversation with the public.
What the GCHQ only had to fend off every few decades in the UK with policy makers is now very public in the USA - total mastery of global telecommunications network with generational storage.
Slowly the other aspect is becoming more public too: "European Court Says CIA Ran Secret Jail in a Polish Forest" (July 24, 2014)
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters...
Its the age old use of signals intelligence - never tell the public and it is perfect. The problem for the USA is so many groups are now using signals intelligence that they all want the big wins in public and closed trials.
The problem is once signals intelligence gets out in court at a city, state, federal level - the magic stops. Every court connected member of the press, legal profession, law enforcement suddenly has a story to sell, tell or whisper.
Anybody who needs to know about crime and signals intelligence can then just buy the methods and drop out.
What did the UK learn early on? Dont give political leaders raw information about the Soviet Union - ever. Dont go to court over spies - ever. Dont go to court over leaks, whistleblowers or tell all books or for peace activists.
The UK knows the stories then just drop away from the front pages and drift off into academic books with very limited print runs.
The real unknown is the US cyber industrial complex with products to sell, rent and look after in every city and state if lobbied.
The West has become one big signals intelligence marketplace and laws need to be relaxed to enjoy new sales :)

The US has its own plans http://judiciary.house.gov/ind... (Jul 24 2014)
Read what the US gov could do in the first 10 page pdf:
"amend the law to create a felony penalty for unauthorized Internet streaming. Specifically, we recommend the creation of legislation to establish a felony charge for infringement through unauthorised public performances conducted for commercial advantage or private financial gain,”"
and for the international friends:
"diplomatic and trade-based pressure"

All that happened in the USA was the protest leaders where identified, set up or turned. The rest is just busy work.
COINTELPRO has never worked so well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
As for Australia, watching all law reform groups is trivial for the police and security services.
The traction the anti Vietnam war draft movement had in Australia will never be allowed to build for any issue.