much of what you wrote was actually reasonable, but this seems to be the basis of what you are posting about lately. it is NOT an accurate characterization of what we have recently found out is going on. it is quite the overstatement, and i know even you will admit that.
Yes it is, anything a target does in the digital domain, phone calls, emails, FB/Twitter posts, web searches, etc can be queried for analysis after the fact with X-Keyscores capability that’s what this program was designed to do, collect using a variety of means, process, analyse, disseminate and store the worldwide data in a blanket fashion.
however, i am not so naive to believe that they are not doing this (this refers to your overblown statement) anyway. they probably are. they've been keeping an eye on us for a long time now. many, many decades now, at least. technology has made the job a lot easier.
What overblown statements have I made? The capability I know they had many years ago was only a couple of steps under what has been revealed of late, actually, many years ago there was actually better “self auditing” protocols to limit abuse and ensure people only accessed data they needed to. These days, kinda seems like a free for all, but that’s another issue entirely...
given that there is likely greater surveillance going on than what we have even been made aware of lately for a long, long time, then what? what do we make of it?
I would bet money there is... A profound change in foreign policy would be required along with a gutting of around half your national security apparatus to a manageable level, right now it’s too convoluted with agencies more concerned with budgets rather that their mission statements.
doesn't seem to me any administration is really abusing it. they're not hauling off dissidents to secret FEMA camps, they're not persecuting anyone, if they use this data in some parallel operation to bust dudes like me who grow pot, they are doing a very shitty job of it.*
What you’re describing is heading down that path that much is clear with the federalisation of state and local law enforcement.
So Impinging on and marginalising constitutional rights is not abuse? Collecting blanket data on citizens worldwide with no warrant not abuse? Not the coolest story bro...
and above all else, it is your decision to subject yourself to most of it. you can get phones anonymously, ditto the internet, so on and so forth. you can live like a shadow if you want.
And you don’t think our enemies are thinking the same way? While people are free to opt in/out of services like facebook and twitter, phone and internet accounts etc, if people are not doing or intend on doing anything wrong and are law abiding citizens why should they have to sacrifice their privacy and to a degree their 4a rights to use a service which is free?
Even with facebook under their privacy statement you can request a copy of all the information they hold on you and it’s a free service, you cannot just write to the US government and ask them for all the data they hold on you, even though, the citizens own the capability which is deployed against them.
i don't expect my phone records to be an anonymous thing anyway. i fully expect that they would be held against me in a court of law if and when. and if they did get me through some secret dragnet parallel operation that violated the constitution, our imperfect justice system allows us to get that evidence thrown the fuck out.
I’m glad you realise that because everything you do and say can be played back for a grand jury. And while ultimately a charge can be dropped, the price of fighting to clear your name can be just as detrimental as a conviction. Look what has happened to whistleblowers like Thomas Drake and Franz Gayl, they came from behind the looking glass and were part of the system and the justice system nearly destroyed them.
if the super secret worldwide spying conspiracy was so perfect and inescapable, why haven't they nailed people like you for speech about the holocaust that would be a crime in your country? some conspiracy
I haven’t done or said anything that is a crime. I'm not a hasbarat so I wouldn't know...
