The way this article reads, it makes it sound like the NSA are just casually diverting deliveries to put bugs in random people's gear.
I find it extremely difficult to believe that. The goods of particular people of interest, sure, but not just random Joe Public. It seems to me that the odds of someone taking their bit of kit to the shop for repair work and having the bug discovered are just too great. Same with malware. Not to mention that the odds of actually catching anything interesting and useful with random bugging like that are just not worth the effort, or at least it would seem to not be. I mean, even J. Edgar Hoover didn't do that. Besides, we already know they can tap the data of at least the 3 largest cellular carriers in the States, not to mention most of the ISPs and data hosts (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, etc.). So going to the effort of planting random bugs on Joe Public just doesn't seem particularly useful, in light of the information they can already get.
Just to be clear, I don't have a particular problem with the NSA collecting data in a data center somewhere. I DO have a problem with the idea that any PFY or Presidential Aid can just go trolling through that data any time they want with (at best) only perfunctory oversite. And IF they are going to collect that data, they'd better damn well have it secured six ways from Sunday, because a data warehouse with information on every citizen is going to have a bull's-eye painted on it the size of, well, Utah.
So actually, yeah, I guess I DO have a problem with the idea, if only because the government has proven time and time again just how incredibly inept it is at controlling access to sensitive data. But I still find it difficult to believe the NSA is engaging in just random bugging of parcels and gear of ordinary citizens for no reason.