The SIM card bit is actually I think a distraction. The real issue should be the means: the NSA/GCHQ intentionally targeted innocent/non government affiliated people's personal email and social networking.
That's different than collecting everyone'ss data and claiming you never look at it unless someone does something to loose their innocence. Orwellian nightmare that that is and probably bullshit, revelations along those lines are not surprising. The systematic targeting of the personal lives of random employees (at least of non-governmental/ non defense industry ones), is new.
No, that's actually the bread and butter of intelligence work. At least it was in HUMINT, if not in SIGINT. You identify individual(s) with access to what you need and then work on/with them. This is not surprising or even controversial (mind you, I am not in any way in favour of such things, just playing the devil's advocate a bit) at all. Hard evidence of dragnet, massive, all encompassing surveillance really is the new revelation that has come out of Snowden leaks including this one. Targeting of individuals (especially if they're foreigners) was always going on.
That's different than collecting everyone'ss data and claiming you never look at it unless someone does something to loose their innocence. Orwellian nightmare that that is and probably bullshit, revelations along those lines are not surprising. The systematic targeting of the personal lives of random employees (at least of non-governmental/ non defense industry ones), is new.