I care because obviously if they start locking people up for political thoughts that would be a bad thing. But at the same time I do not care currently because that isn't happening. I've never assumed I was anonymous on the internet, it's all tracked. I know what type of logs and everything are kept, and I just assume everything on the internet is filtered for keywords and has been for decades. With non-internet things, in real life, you have no expectation of privacy in public or on another's private property. People can take pictures of you, you can be recorded, you can be stop and frisked in some states/cities, etc. There is no privacy in public. Period. Everyone knows that, and no one brings that up as a comparison to the internet. The internet is very much a mish mash of various private and public infrastructure criss-crossing the globe. So my argument has always been, why do we feel entitled to an expectation of privacy that is somehow even greater than are lack of privacy when we walk about in the real world outside of our homes? What is so special about what people do on the internet that they care so much about whether it was logged somewhere? If it wasn't the NSA doing it, I'd still assume that anything I do on the internet could be tracked or recorded by another party. There just isn't any guarantees of privacy online or in public, and there never will be, even if the NSA shutdown tomorrow. Not trying to sound like a hipster, but I've been telling people about this snooping and the capabilities of the government for over a decade now. And while I may not like it, it is what it is, I do believe it serves a purpose, I do believe every country is doing it, and I do believe it's only a story because it's the US and because they got caught with their pants down. But at the same time, we aren't China, we aren't Qatar, and we aren't locking up people who insult the king or post a banned topic. But of course, that is the possible negative outcome of all of this. But I'm not ready to jump into the "Police State / Nazi Germany / NWO/ 1984" club with the Redditors and other people who are completely losing their shit over this story. The other day I was talking to a guy on Reddit who was asking about SSL and why Reddit only uses encryption for login but not commenting or browsing. I pointed out that SSL would be kind of silly to encrypt comments that appear in plain text anyway. I mean, he volunteers his thoughts and ideas into comments for everyone to see who goes to that thread, but he somehow was angry that the traffic itself wasn't encrypted. I was just kind of baffled by that mindset. Some people are taking this privacy battle too far (for my tastes), and it's obvious many really do not even understand it. But it's another one of thos internet-uniting causes like SOPA/ACTA that gives a lot of people with little excitement going on, to fight some "battle" over privacy in this case. They aren't making legitimate arguments like "Hey you shouldn't be able to snoop cell conversations or emails, but we understand you're trunking connection information at the ISP, and we understand why that's needed." It's just "OMG THE NSA DID THIS WHAT A BUNCH OF JERKS!" It's just blind hate, much like we saw with SOPA/ACTA, and I just get really turned off when this happens. I probably don't have the most popular opinion on this subject, but I'm apathetic at best with all of this privacy stuff.
I don't think this is true. You still have the privacy of thought, of everything that's in your mind. For me a lot of privacy is the choice to tell something or not tell something and the fact that that choice is mine to make no matter what. Your comment might be better as "There is no physical privacy in public" but even that is not 100% true. It is more true in the UK I think.With non-internet things, in real life, you have no expectation of privacy in public or on another's private property
Well much like in public, no one can read your thoughts on the internet either, unless you choose to put them into text and transmit them, much like choosing to speak in public. I still don't see much of a difference.
I understand your apathy and your acceptance of the fact that some third-party more than likely has access to your internet footprint. But as kb said elsewhere in this thread, the NSA demonstrably overstepped its charter, is breaking the law, and it should be stopped, as a matter of judicial principle. Just like we arrest and punish street criminals, we ought to put a stop to injustices carried out by the government (and white collar criminals while we're dreaming, not a single arrest and conviction in relation to the ballooned mortgage market!?). Sure this is a convenient excuse for some to get outraged on the internet, but that's not an excuse to drop this cause.
I haven't dropped it. You'll notice I said I don't like it and consider it illegal, I'm just not going to fool myself and pretend on the internet that I'm going to do something about it. I vote, I caucus, I attend primaries, and I'll do what I can there. But beyond that, I'm not going to fight some arm-chair revolution with anyone over this. That's all. Also, if people think the NSA is the only branch doing this, they need to read up, yet they are the only agency getting mentioned in all of this privacy stuff. The CIA, FBI, DEA, and DHS all have their own signals intelligence programs. People need to be mad at the politicians they voted for, or didn't vote for, because these programs are common across many branches of military and domestic law enforcement. It's not just the NSA. I get why it's a serious issue. I get why it's illegal. I get how it's unconstitutional. But I'm being honest about myself not going out into the streets to protest or revolt, yet that seems to be what all the people who are vehemently against this and outspoken over it seem to be talking about... yet I haven't seen a single person actually go out and do anything. Not one. So what makes me any different from them other than perhaps a little more self awareness? I'm just not fooling myself that I'm going to do anything about it outside of the voting booth.