You know, I don't really mind that the NSA is collecting this information. What bothers me is that it's not being released to the public. What good are their efforts if no one else can build off of their work?
Also, the impossibility of organising a broad based political movement for change within the US in response to, say, severely worsening economic or climatic conditions because of 'self censorship' by US citizens?
These are weak signals working over a long timescale. But those things are important.
I do not think you know what the hell you're talking about - and I also don't think you understand the gravity of the power that having an octopus for total information awareness over the planet actually means.
You're lost.
_insert emoticon indicating sarcasm combined with emoticon indicating awful pun_
The fact that there exists danger in "an octopus for total information awareness", and that IMO it's entirely undesirable, it's also perfectly possible that a bunch of people disagree with me, and believe that the existence of such is indeed for the "common good."
You don't win a war like this by painting these people as evil or amoral. They are just wrong.
Jesus, you're a a condescending prick.
There's a reason Springer-Verlag publishes so many data-mining books.
You don't mind because you think it'll only be used to catch "hardcore criminals & terrorist". Also, if everyone had the info the NSA has I'm sure all kinds of extortion, job dismissals and divorces would happen. Even those in power I'm sure don't want that info just out there on an API for any random person with interwebz.
Please don't speak for me. I was talking about the information collection, not what they're doing with that information.
Catching criminals? Sure, but that's very minor compared to the real harm that data can do to a bunch of relatively harmless people. Like using a gun to kill a housefly. The chances of you hitting the housefly are very low, but the chances of you harming a bunch of innocent people while trying are likely.