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Comment by oceanstone | Hacker News Reader

> If we continuously make it increasingly harder for NSA, MOSAD, GCHQ and the rest of them to spy on us, we can achieve good enough privacy

Right now everyone's digital communications are being collected by those agencies, via fiber optic cable taps [1]. This could be called bulk surveillance. Different people & groups have access to these databases of communications. Some are government employees, some are contractors. Now, what if an activist or a Senator starts speaking out against bulk surveillance? Would those with access to the databases be tempted to run a few queries?

  'SELECT * FROM `sms` WHERE `person_id`="$senator_id"'

Note: Most analysts would never run that query. But it just takes one.

[1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/interviews...

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FWIW, if I were a senator who was considering taking on the intelligence community I would probably think it through and have my house in order first. Politicians aren't known for being tech savvy, but they aren't known for being stupid either. People took on McCarthy, Hoover and Nixon and they survived.

Most people here don't have a lot of faith in our system of government these days and even less faith in those that do the governing. But the truth is that the american democracy has been around for hundreds of years and it will take more than a SQL statement to bring it down. There are checks and balances and highly motivated and intelligent people with a lot to lose on both sides of every issue. This too shall pass.

> I would probably think it through and have my house in order first

The bulk collection has been going on for at least a decade now.

> Politicians aren't known for being tech savvy, but they aren't known for being stupid either.

I've observed politicians get away with certain behaviors, to a point. For example, Eliot Spitzer, or Bill Clinton. Once they become a target, their trespasses aren't necessarily forgiven.

> This too shall pass.

The Snowden revelations are "The Jungle" of our time. We'll adapt to these issues. Still, our adaption won't be free, and a proactive attitude will benefit us.

Remember that Sinclair aimed for the heart and hit the stomach. His goal was reform of industrialized labor conditions, but he got food purity and safety laws.

To use his book as a metaphor implies that Snowden's leaks will do nothing to stop domestic dragnet surveillance and everything to seal the system against future whistleblower leaks.

I find that I must agree.

Although I'm not familiar with the _actual_ operating procedures involved, one would hope/expect this not to be available to lone analysts at their own discretion.

I thought the source of some of this data was Snowden's access at his own discretion, with his own keys and others' that he obtained?

I say "some" since Schneier has stated he now considers there to be at least 3 leakers... https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/08/the_us_intell...

The other two leakers got their information from somewhere, and it could have also included access at their own discretion.

One can hope. When Binney blew the whistle on the NSA he specifically said that he saw a request for Senator Obama's communications during his time there, as well as other elected officials.

Was that Binney or Tice?

It was Tice. My mistake. Thank you for the check.

> Although I'm not familiar with the _actual_ operating procedures involved

Their official line is that the data isn't being collected, correct?

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