I have no issue with the NSA looking at information that these companies are already collecting and accessing for their own purposes, let alone information people themselves are throwing out there with he intent of having the world view. I wouldn't expect anything less from a national security agency. Cracking encryption and tapping conversations willy nilly is another matter and should be scrutinized, but bashing the NSA for following you on facebook is absurd.
On Facebook? Yeah, I'm not too particular about that. Wall posts are indeed quite public.
I'm thinking of things more in the line of e-mails. Those are closer to physical mail, intended to be delivered to a specific person. Business e-mails often include disclaimers, stating that it is intended for a specific recipient. Does the expectation there become, "If you didn't want anyone snooping on your stuff, you should have encrypted it?"
What about mailed letters? Do those need to be written in code if you want to be reasonably sure of privacy? My understanding is that it's illegal to open someone else's mail. I'd like to see some of that extended out to include electronic communications, but there's way too much advertising money to be had from snooping into that data, so I doubt we'll ever see any legal restrictions on that.
What would a law enforcement officer need to do to be able to (legally) open someone's mail?
So here's a thought.
Who do you feel more threatened by.
A fanatic whose primary home of residence is a mud hut in a desert on the other side of the world, and whose prized worldly possession is a 30 year old AK47 or maybe a 20 year old RPG.
Or, a government that is right here, with millions of people doing its bidding, determined to track your every move, catalog your behavior, and which has no compunction about re-defining your rights into non-existence?
And with the exception of the insane radicals who are bent on destroying "The Great Satan," or are otherwise on some crazy religious crusade given to them by their god (huh...kind of like how our politicians sometimes talk :hmm
, they probably just want to be left alone to go about their lives, without interference from outsiders.
That's actually a fair comparison, and so is the cops clocking your speed or running your plates as you drive by. The NSA is observing traffic.
An unfortunate weakness in the system, for sure, and a very old one at that.
At the lower levels, the sending device broadcasts to anything that can hear it, but everything that it was
not addressed to is meant to ignore it. You're going into a big room, and shouting out what you want to say to a guy named Steve, with the (often very correct) assumption that everyone who
isn't Steve will completely ignore what you said.
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