A somewhat philosophical question: what is the endgame here?
Cracking codes was no doubt fundamental to winning the Second World War (and I would imagine all wars since the invention of the Caesar cipher) - but since then the motivation for surveillance appears to have from safeguarding the freedoms and rights of the people to an full-scale assault.
We now have nation-wide surveillance of the British public (and no doubt the people of most other countries), who for the most part couldn't be of less interest if they tried. So what is the motivation for this? What is it about you or I that is so interesting to GCHQ/NSA?
The priority has been the same for hundreds of years: protect the Establishment from "subversives" threatening instability. This includes anyone leaking damaging true information. The grip seems to have loosened in recent years, partly due to overseas media and partly due to the security services genuinely having increasing panic over ISIS and Islamic radicalisation.
What is being concealed? Not just Zircon, but all the persistent allegations of sexual assault on children. A lot of the stories that have surfaced include elements of either the Metropolitan police or MI5 taking over the files and then "losing" them or silently shutting down the inquiry.
It's not a popular opinion, but what they are interested in is silencing and curbing any attempt to attack the current system, regardless of the merit and legitimacy of the "attackers" ( by that I mean activists, journalists, ...), they want to defend their position of power using all means necessary while pretending it's for "freedom & democracy"™.
Their repeated attacks on the press, the persecution (at time violent, if not deadly) of activists/journalists, the illegal wars, the financing of terrorism, protection of known paedophiles,... The list of fucked up shit they pull is so long I personally have lost faith of anyone -in significant numbers- caring, because if you don't care right now, you'll never do.
Cracking codes was no doubt fundamental to winning the Second World War (and I would imagine all wars since the invention of the Caesar cipher) - but since then the motivation for surveillance appears to have from safeguarding the freedoms and rights of the people to an full-scale assault.
We now have nation-wide surveillance of the British public (and no doubt the people of most other countries), who for the most part couldn't be of less interest if they tried. So what is the motivation for this? What is it about you or I that is so interesting to GCHQ/NSA?