Is the NSA spying ?

Hi,
This question was probably asked before, but I can't find a good answer for it.
I usually try to recognize the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth.
I know sometimes a conspiracy theory ends up being truth, but that's why I'm posting this question, to find out.

So I was reading that if you type the following:

Code:

traceroute nsa.gov

That command will tell you the communication between your computer and the NSA. Meaning that you are being spied upon.
But I wonder if this command is just showing the route to the NSA server, instead of showing any communication between the local host and the NSA.
This is what I get after typing that command:

Code:

traceroute to nsa.gov (23.196.119.211), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
 1  a23-196-119-211.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com (23.196.119.211)  1.311 ms  2.221 ms  3.040 ms
 2  10.11.0.1 (10.11.0.1)  11.162 ms  14.981 ms  15.088 ms
 3  172.16.1.149 (172.16.1.149)  19.825 ms  21.865 ms  22.028 ms
 4  172.16.1.225 (172.16.1.225)  22.075 ms  23.591 ms  23.617 ms
 5  172.16.1.226 (172.16.1.226)  27.153 ms  27.209 ms  27.651 ms
 6  190.242.137.17 (190.242.137.17)  92.327 ms  91.800 ms  99.671 ms
 7  63.245.107.189 (63.245.107.189)  103.310 ms  71.634 ms  69.659 ms
 8  63.245.107.126 (63.245.107.126)  78.601 ms  81.419 ms  81.468 ms
 9  0.xe-5-1-2.GW1.MIA19.ALTER.NET (63.65.188.153)  65.879 ms  70.146 ms  71.427 ms
10  0.xe-4-0-0.XL3.IAD8.ALTER.NET (152.63.40.233)  118.433 ms * *
11  TenGigE0-7-0-3.GW1.IAD8.ALTER.NET (152.63.35.157)  100.986 ms TenGigE0-4-1-0.GW1.IAD8.ALTER.NET (152.63.38.246)  100.755 ms  100.169 ms

Apparently you can flush your DNS to stop it, but the commands I found are not doing the trick, or don't work at all.
This is what I used:

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/dns-clean start

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/nscd restart

So, is this real or not ?
Is there a way to block this with the firewall in Ubuntu ?
Thanks !

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Is the NSA spying ?