Secrets, along with who collects them and who they are about, have been part of the national discourse on several occasions throughout our history. The most recent flare-up has occurred over the last several months as revelations about various National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs have been leaked to media outlets around the world. Headlines have abounded throughout the summer and fall, with most of the focus being on two NSA programs. The first is the collection of telephone data records–although not the content of the telephone calls themselves–from U.S. telephone customers. The second is a program called PRISM, a program to collect data from Internet communications, including in some cases, the contents of the communications themselves. Until the reports were leaked, these programs were kept secret from the public at large as well as the individuals whose data was gathered.