Indeed, the author seems to be clearly ignorant of that, be it willingly or otherwise:

> My guess is the de facto interception technique of the future will involve targeting users’ endpoints (phone, computer, tablet, whatever) instead of trying to intercept communications in transit.

The data is still stored in the hands of tech companies, and as such outside the realm of control of the owners of the data. The article writer would do well to realize that it's not about national security, terrorists, or China -- but instead it's about control.

Yeah, I highly doubt they will target users' endpoints (mostly because the ease and largely unreported nature of fiddling/requesting data from ISPs)

No matter where the data ends up being stored, if it has to GO somewhere, and you are the man in the middle everywhere, things start getting a lot easier to track.