Juan_Bottom wrote:Can someone explain to me exactly what the NSA is doing to us?
Every time I tried to find out for myself, the articles that I read were always vague, like our journalists don't even know what they're writing about. What understanding that I have is that the NSA has been compiling worldwide data for a decade in order to find patterns in cyberspace that show terrorist activity is happening. They don't read private emails or facebook chat anything unless they believe that there's a terrorist there. To me, I could not care less that they do that, and it makes sense to do that.
Previously, if one was suspected of a crime, the police could get a warrant to start monitoring your phone calls.
Now, the police can get a warrant to comb through every phone call you've made since the age of 12 in the archived dossiers now being kept on every citizen. Everyone has something in their past for which they can be indicted. And if someone becomes politically annoying, now it can be retrieved. The NSA is under no obligation to limit access to the citizen loyalty dossiers for prosecution only of exotic crimes like terrorism.
In Heinlein's novel "Methuselah" he told how the religious oligarchy running the US avoided prosecuting people for small crimes. Having dirt on people was valuable for use as a cudgel by prosecutors if someone got uppity.
I feel safe in saying, though, that you're loyal enough to the regime that you have nothing to worry about. The regime needs a mindlessly loyal cheering section to shout down the cries of horror when it leads political dissidents like Manning, Awlawki and Snowden to the gallows, and to snitch on disloyal neighbors. Fingermen.
