I think the point of the controversy is that they AREN’T going through the courts or oversight — or at least that FISA rubberstamps every single request.
Actually, the “Big Gov’t” pipe comes from the private fence, not directly from the citizen. Big Govt is getting the vast majority of its data from Big Data who are collecting it anyway for business purposes, not at the behest of the NSA. The government is the beneficiary of their self-serving snooping, not the instigator. Until these latest revelations, it even gave the NSA “plausible deniability” as they could say, “We’re not collecting data on anyone.” Not that it lets the government off the hook for what they do with it or how they correlate it with government data Big Data doesn’t have access to (yet).
Does anyone really expect what they post on the Internet to be private???? Meta data on phone calls has been collected for many years. The only thing new is now we can collect it all.
dumbbobsbrother almost 11 years ago
More truth than poetry in that, Google knows more about us than the government ever will.
Michael Peterson Premium Member almost 11 years ago
I think the point of the controversy is that they AREN’T going through the courts or oversight — or at least that FISA rubberstamps every single request.
edward thomas Premium Member almost 11 years ago
An NPR guest yesterday compared trying o get individual data from this to getting a drink of water from a fire hoise.
wmeahan almost 11 years ago
Actually, the “Big Gov’t” pipe comes from the private fence, not directly from the citizen. Big Govt is getting the vast majority of its data from Big Data who are collecting it anyway for business purposes, not at the behest of the NSA. The government is the beneficiary of their self-serving snooping, not the instigator. Until these latest revelations, it even gave the NSA “plausible deniability” as they could say, “We’re not collecting data on anyone.” Not that it lets the government off the hook for what they do with it or how they correlate it with government data Big Data doesn’t have access to (yet).
Theodore E. Lind Premium Member almost 11 years ago
Does anyone really expect what they post on the Internet to be private???? Meta data on phone calls has been collected for many years. The only thing new is now we can collect it all.
edclectic almost 11 years ago
Privacy circa when? History tells me it is human nature (perversity) to spy.
Rickapolis almost 11 years ago
What? You mean Big Brother is really US????