It's easy to become numb to the ever-worsening trickle of news relating to the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance programs. That's understandable — but the Series of Tubes is here to help you stay vigilant. The past two weeks have seen the biggest developments since the story broke in June.

1. The biggest revelation of late involves XKeyscore, a program that collects "nearly everything a user does on the Internet" and allows analysts to access it with little to no oversight. No doubt this is what Edward Snowden was talking about when he said he would technically be able to read the president's email.

2. Former NSA chief Michael Hayden, who oversaw similar domestic surveillance programs during the Bush years, confirmed XKeyscore's existence. In a grand display of buffoonery, Hayden called the program "really good news" and "quite an achievement" and dismissed privacy advocates as "twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years" (he also compared them to "nihilists, anarchists, activists" and even al-Qaeda).

3. The NSA is sharing information gleaned from its domestic surveillance programs with other federal agencies. Reuters reported that a Drug Enforcement Administration unit is using such information to launch criminal investigations and is trained to cover up the source of the evidence. Now the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security and others are clamoring for a piece of the NSA's pie.

4. The House Intelligence Committee has repeatedly withheld information about the NSA's programs from surveillance-wary legislators. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting to force Congress investigate the NSA: Last Sunday, protesters gathered in cities across the country for "1984 Day," and activists continue to push individual lawmakers to take action during the August congressional recess.

5. On Thursday, the owner and operator of the encrypted email service Lavabit closed up shop rather than "become complicit in crimes against the American people." Some suspect that Lavabit, reportedly the email client Snowden used, was the target of a U.S. investigation or lawsuit aiming to obtain the whistleblower's emails. Following the announcement, another provider of secure online services, Silent Circle, shut down Silent Mail, its own encrypted email offering.

6. According to Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, we haven't heard the last of the NSA Files. Expect the disclosures to continue, with the newest release coming sometime next week.

It's hard to find a good way to sum up my feelings about all of this, but I'll give it a shot. In the words of the immortal Lando Calrissian, this deal's getting worse all the time ... .