Is anyone else curious on what data setup the NSA is using? Do they have some crazy non relational ZFS setup that makes Hadoop seem like a kid's toy? Or is it just a bunch of off the shelf enterprise SQL servers duct taped together?
I think they are the cutting edge of this sort of thing. Think about military tech that we now use in everyday life, lots of innovations come from military applications. Think about memory foam and NASA.
Think about it they have more money to spend than anyone; corporation or government.
My bet is on the latter.