Every connection to that device is now databased or waiting to be collected.

Yes just like the Western press did watching East Germany respond to protests. Keep the the media safe, get it out for broadcast.

Re: "For everyone else"
The problem is you may have to pass that area under cell tracking for some unrelated reason.
Every user that turns their phone off (battery out or turned off) near the tracked protest area will be looked at ie you where educated about tracking and wanted to enter a protest zone without your phone on.
Thats the problem with any cell device. A a vast area of use is reconstructed by gov and mil experts every phone is going to be considered.
Powered on at the protest.
Powered off before entering the protest area.
Walking to or with a person who was at the protest site or also had their phone off in a guilty way near the protest area.
The cell use map will massive over a wide area and over time. To catch people arriving early, late, meeting people or walking to or from an event.
Did they steam, upload media? If so what, where and how and to what network, where they given data to stream further way trying to hide the person who captured the true optics of the event for the press and a wider world.

Yes with most projects just follow the years of funding. Good enough tech to fund a distant color revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... but the entry end end points are still gov friendly.

Yes wow :)
As for the need to pull young people in your getting close to Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Paramilitary group as with Hitler Youth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The "military training contexts" as mentioned seems to stand out long term, as with the desperate drive for more basic quality science and math and beyond.
The UK seem to have consider the same need for science and to build the ranks of its gov and private sectors with:
GCHQ staff teach 'future spies' in schools (09 March 11)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobi...
The most basic question is why dont they all just pump cash into selective normal academic school funding as is, no questions in the press, test, guide, fund, suggest or scholarship out as needed?
Why the need now for a generation rush to push of "military training contexts" in wider public education? Whats missing or not working now? What is so needed in a few years for an entire generation?

Australia tried so hard with vast test area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... after WW2.
The UK spent big on US equipment ideas and space related tech for its own secure sat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... option.
Both nations show its kind of hard to get gifts or buy in. Your own staff and production lines have to be set up in sync with your nations own science pace.
India really shows the science advancement option, as it started at the same time, with less and years later shows what can do now as a nation without constant costly outside help.

Lots of nations tried different ways of getting into space. Some like the UK and Australia did deals with the USA.
East Germany looked to the Soviet Union.
Long term the only way for a nation to get into space is to do do India did. Fully understand every aspect of the basic science and have your own hardware and software production, then move onto the next easy stage of space technology.
Other space nations will give you a free ride for the press or sell you tech but will not give away their own hard work.

Most spy agencies like to watch a new person as they advance, given small tests, trails, working with their handlers.
Left in place to advance and get to policy setting, overview or trusted command like level decades later without ever been noticed.
Walking in with bulk material for free and having another nation just accept it is a trap many nations have fallen for.
Any material offered might have spy bait mixed in it by default or be pre sorted to fool a nations own staff at different security levels. A nation that is offered this mix of random documents then rushes out to buy super computers, invests in new lasers or scans the skies for projects never started.
Russia has enough of its own trusted well placed people at different levels of other govs globally.
China likes the decades of very advanced education offered for free in other nations. Both outlooks differ from that of the US or UK in bulk instant 'win' of documents bought from people or from signals collected.
The planet wide signals intelligence network is great if your rushed/forced to use tame international telco like networks all the time. Other nations might just use people to travel the world and wait a week or so for a chat in person. Number stations like ideas can push rapid messages out globally.

Down to the MAC and beyond, onto your own home networks, then a human can take over.

The military commands in the EU nations are having fun driving, sailing, flying and coding advanced US provided platforms and systems at low cost.
All parts of the EU had to offer was a few shared sites with optical and telco interconnects.
Kind of hard to give up on all that free or low cost US export grade equipment over some data on some citizens when the deals where done over decades.

Think of it as an chilling free speech tracking sock puppet without the need to hire staff and have then craft online personas just to find one person a gov/mil finds difficult.
Post the wrong set of words about funding a new war, new backing of freedom fighters, the use of drones in a new entanglement, the sending of boots on the ground.
Your IP, network and OS could then face a series of limited probes until your online life was constructed, ready for a file to be passed to a real human.
Your use of a firewall, AV and encryption would just be seen as fun and be bypassed thanks to tame consumer OS developers or poor quality open source code.
Then you may face the human set "disinformation" or "effects capabilities" psychological operations and information warfare by manipulating social media, spoofing communications from an individual.
In the past you would need a team of humans to interact with an ip, person posting. Now that can happen later after more detail has been gathered - with less human guidance.

It looks after working with ads in English.
It looks after other interested parties looking for expected keywords.

Generations of teloc shared sites and the inter connects with other nations would make that entire region worthy of huge gov/mil spending just for their own dual use backhaul. Build a hardened network and the Soviet Union would notice. Dual use and its just very new, early optical. Digital exchanges and other vast network upgrades ensure a better on average regional experience.

New filesystems and databases might show up as less people trust the same old tame providers that decrypt for the US gov as installed.
But the good news for the USA is the data will still have connect with say international billing and other US set global standards.
Thats where a system like this might be fun. You dont have to care what the backend was, just what is sent as known, expected, decrypted data.
Pulling useful data from new bespoke communications streams will be like setting the old standards. You still get to collect it all at some point in on the NSA's global network no matter how fancy nations and firms get internally.
Re 'Why didn't this come up with itself before now?" because it was all like ENIGMA 2.0 - plain text for the USA/UK over decades thanks to tame exported crypto that always had a trap or back door.
Now you have to hunt for fragments of the same messages in strange new net code. The standards are still US set, so you know what your looking for :)