His point wasn't "all fibre optic" but that by tapping specific routers, e.g. one close to Facebook where FB traffic is concentrated, the NSA can filter and store nearly all FB traffic while FB has full deniability. At the referenced link are links to court documents in which exactly this kind of tap was revealed to exist at AT&T.

As to SSL, is there a claim that NSA has broken it? I wasn't aware of that. Not relevant to Gibson's idea, anyway.