TBH the feds really must treat their employees like shit for Ed Snowden to have blown the whistle like that; as its surely money for old rope working for them.
the local donut munchers (not even NSA) could track these posts, bear in mind US IT engineers like sitting on their arse and eating too, as well as guns and being in control of things; so every time there are layoffs in a tech company a proportion of them must end up joining the cops (they do in Europe).
Although the USA is big, most ISPs and cable companies set out their networks in such a way its really easy to trace where a post comes from.
This isn’t done simply to help surveillance, is just so the engineers (who may be from a different region, state or even country) know where the cables go and can fix them when stuff goes wrong; but it does mean law enforcement can ask them for the info (and often the cops / local govt are the biggest customer of the cable or telephone company).
25 or more years ago the engineers at the local interception station simply said to me and my friends “if you can’t physically inspect the cable throughout its route your communications aren’t private, and if you transmit them via the wireless airwaves anyone else can receive them as well”.
