Make no mistake - any competent terrorist will not be using hotmail and skype to broadcast their plans. The surveillance infrastructure is best used for spying on law abiding citizens.
And if you think you are a law abiding citizen who has nothing to fear from surveillance, understand that with the proliferation of legislation that gets enacted without anyone even reading bills, the average US citizen commits three felonies a day. The day you run afoul of the rulers, the all seeing eye will surely focus its gaze on everything stored about you in the massive government data warehouse of warehouses.
Maybe the government is going about doing this the right way, and they have our best interests in mind. But the key issue is that they are not transparent about what they are doing.
Bruce Schneider: "Knowing how the government spies on us is important. Not only because so much of it is illegal -- or, to be as charitable as possible, based on novel interpretations of the law -- but because we have a right to know. Democracy requires an informed citizenry in order to function properly, and transparency and accountability are essential parts of that. That means knowing what our government is doing to us, in our name. That means knowing that the government is operating within the constraints of the law. Otherwise, we're living in a police state."
The internet is built on American platforms and the country has done extraordinarily well in capitalizing on this - but if the rest of the countries of the world, many of whom have a higher standards for privacy, do not trust the US it will create opportunities for others to provide secure options for communications, and the american economy will pay a price for it (not unlike the $10 we pay for each air ticket to sponsor the security theater that goes on).
As prof Lessig argues in Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace - the internet is not an unregulatable place of freedom, but can be architected to become a place of oppressive control. Unsophisticated governments may resort to such crude tactics as shutting it down, the moderately intelligent but ultimately ignorant ones have more sly tactics work to shape the architecture of cyberspace so that monitoring and control become fully ingrained features, with no option for users to opt out of the constant surveillance.
As prof Lessig argues in Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace - the internet is not an unregulatable place of freedom, but can be architected to become a place of oppressive control. Unsophisticated governments may resort to such crude tactics as shutting it down, the moderately intelligent but ultimately ignorant ones have more sly tactics work to shape the architecture of cyberspace so that monitoring and control become fully ingrained features, with no option for users to opt out of the constant surveillance.
Lets hold our politicians accountable, if they cannot provide oversight over the executive branch and merely serve as rubber stamps, they do not deserve our trust or our votes. Lets support entities like EFF and ACLU, that fight for our civil liberties and transparency in government. And if nothing else, lets not have this conversation die out when CNN and Foxnews get distracted by the next photogenic american tourist that disappears in a third world country. This is a time to ask questions, and make decisions on how we need to structure our society and technology to protect our civil liberties.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin.
