The big internet companies--Google, Facebook, Apple among others--are pleading with Obama to pull back the NSA's spying programs because >gasp!< they don't like being forced to compromise their customers' privacy. They are also pointedly afraid that their power to gather data on European and other populations might be legally restricted by other governments, and of course, they hate the thought. They paint this as a threat to good ol' American industry.
The news media go along with this with a straight face, and even liberal and libertarian pundits engage in endless hushed, and not so hushed, debate about the proper limits of NSA's power to spy on us. No one raises the obvious elephant in the room: if those companies were not vacuuming up all our data in the first place, the NSA would have nothing to look at.
Why isn't anyone connecting the dots? See below for some thoughts...
There is one obvious possibility: That most reporters really are too ignorant or too lazy to make the obvious connection between the collection of our data (by the information technology companies) and the consequent ability of NSA to demand it be handed over for snooping. This explanation is just not credible, and if it were, it would be too sad to contemplate.
A more likely explanation: The Obama team, and liberals in general, are afraid to kick these companies in the shins because they were big donors to Democrats in the last campaign cycle. So Obama grins and bears it when they show up to kick his shins about the NSA, and in fact he issues an order to his administration to look at scaling back NSA spying. No one dares to tell the companies that maybe they are the enablers and should look in the mirror.
(Don't worry, conservatives don't get off free here! The problem with them is that they would view any crimping of corporate spying as just another proof that we are sliding into socialism. So they're hopeless.)
Another likely explanation: The citizens of this good land are simply too addicted to their "free" services, and are unable, unwilling, or outright disinterested in protecting their own privacy. They have made the bargain that they will allow Google and Facebook to own them, in exchange for being able to get "liked" by a bunch of strangers who share the same taste in music or clothes.
Either way, it is apparent that there is no political percentage in telling the truth about what is really going on.
Google et. al. are afraid that other countries will begin erecting firewalls and data sanctuaries to protect their citizens. This writer hopes they do so, whether or not NSA folds up shop tomorrow. For one thing, NSA would simply be replaced by other, worse agencies. (Imagine this power in the hands of a Cheney regime.) The temptation of governments to abuse a resource like this is irresistible. But government spying is NOT the only danger, or even the worst danger.
For if there is something lying around that can be weaponized, someone will do it, and in this case, the companies ARE doing it. On this board, we have waxed nearly hysterical over Citizens United and the buying of the American political process. And the most prevalent topic on this board is economic inequality and the growing power of corporations. Who do we think will benefit most from the concentration of data about every American citizen in the hands of a few, unaccountable, corporations? That should frighten us at least as much as NSA does.
The failure of observers, in the mainstream press, the political parties, and boards like this one, to raise the alarm about corporate data hoarding is nothing less than shameful.