What about the Chinese government having access to US govt systems for several years without anyone knowing? Could leaking nuclear, space, or strategic plans to a foreign government hurt anyone? Yes. All of a sudden the plans for bombs and ships we've spent billions to develop are handed over and free to use. That's not a good thing.
What about it? How will recording and data mining text messages fix that problem?
Furthermore, if the government has already screwed up their systems and made them publicly available in the first place, how can you be so sure they'll competently implement their surveillance systems?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-07/chinese-cyber-spyin...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_bomb
and of course:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet