> Thirdly, public internet posts aren't subject to privacy, and to the degree one may think they are of the sort that phone calls and private emails ought to be, what is the standard being described as hypocritical here?

Isn't this a bit ironic then if you are one who is up in arms about this NSA story? IE: Wholesale scooping up of unencrypted emails / forum posts etc should be expected. It hasn't been proven that actual listening in on phone conversations involving US citizens is actually going on, just phonecall metadata.