While there has been a lot written about the NSA grabbing phone calls and even Snowden warning that phone calls are the most insecure form of communication, this move to share info among government to hunt capital for taxes has been expanded to telephone services. You can now ONLY buy a telephone with a credit card issued only in that country. An American cannot buy a mobile phone in the UK with am American credit card. After all, how would the NSA figure out how to link all the data if you could have multiple phones.
