Meta Diary for your Monday.
This diary is meant for discussion of what it MEANS to you that the NSA apparently has access to call data on all domestic users of at least Verizon services, and that folks abroad (including American citizens) have their internet activity being monitored via most major search engines and ISP's.
Whether you thought about it at the time or not, simply signing up for Verizon wireless service allows an international corporation to know everything about your most intimate communications. While the calls are not being recorded (as far as you know, and I believe they have to tell you if they are), all data about who you called, where you called from, how long your call was, etc (including text messages) has been recorded and is being analyzed and sold to advertisers who are geo-targeting.
Ditto with teh Google. Remember Markos' diary about a new way for Daily Kos to be ad-free? Google is finally comfortable that they have collected enough data on its billions of users, from search activity to Gmail to Google+, that it can sell its users as 'behavior' or 'interest' groups to advertisers...instead of merely placing ads on sites that use Google Adsense, they can now state to advertisers with statistical confidence that these ads will show to users who search X amount of times a month for X, visit these sites Y many times a week, and search for Z to attend yearly. Did you think that Google was really 'free' or that those ads that appear only on some sites was supporting their entire juggernaut?
So this begs the question: Why the outrage when the info is shared with the NSA, when so many of us have been willing participants in sharing our most personal info with mega corporations, which we mistrust far more than the government?
A benefit? The most obvious one is that the data can be used to identify criminal, enemy or terror activity both domestically and abroad. The way I understand how it would go is this:
1. NSA/FBI recognizes a pattern of calls from a known hotbed of separatist groups in rural Oklahoma. This pattern of origins and destinations of these communications indicates non-coincidental communications activity that is very similar to that which occurred prior to the ::insert here:: attack in ::insert year::.
2. The gov gets another subpoena, which they have to do because they cannot actually monitor the conversations and other more intricate details with the revolving FISA court approval.
3. Separatists are tracked, and another OK City bombing is thwarted.
Of course, the above is the best-case. My primary concern is the following scenario and others like it:
1. Guy (US Citizen) gets detained at US customs for trying to smuggle in a lambswool sweater from Ireland.
2. There is a brazen supervisor with Customs/FBI who decides to do a little 'cross-checking', after discussing ::over a lot of cocktails:: with an agency lawyer how this supreme court decision makes it legal to do so without an additional warrant.
3a. Guy is found to have been in the area making calls when a cop was assault by SOMEONE during an OWS rally. Since the FBI never found who did it, they detain the guy for the maximum allowed time, subjecting him to constant interrogation about who he was and what he was doing on that day.
OR
3b. There's a Republican president, and the guy is instantly labeled an enemy combatant and thrown in Gitmo.
Some of the 'lack' of outrage is that many of us who were paying attention since we first heard the 'You've Got Mail! jingle have mentally prepared ourselves for these reminders that none of our info over cell phones or the internet was really private. But for those of you who are incensed at more people not being noticeably angry, I think you'll find the situation much different if the worse-case scenario actually occurs.
And of course, I blame Repukes mostly for this: they put it in place and would clearly have no moral qualms about misusing it.
Were you more upset or scared of the idea of your call data being recorded after the NSA program was leaked? If so, why? If not, why not?
Have a great Monday!