if the government (all levels) is watching everything we do

[djean111]

2. They are not watching in real time, for the most part, just recording.

They are scooping up everything so it can be sifted through at leisure.
This stuff is almost all after the fact - and privacy concerns aside, they are gathering data with no context.
This is not like Minority Report - unless they are already watching someone anyway, all they can do when something bad happens is to go back and search and find out the Who and the How, because they already have the What. Problem is, they don't know Why.
If someone decides you bear investigating, they can then pull up everything about you - financials, movements, emails, phone calls. Yes, they store the phone conversations digitally and there is software to listen or just search for key words. All phone conversations are packetized already.

They are gathering everything so they can use it later - blackmail, investigating crimes, etc.