> allusions to fascist governments are made, which would be fine, if these companies were governments. But they aren't: they have no power. It only takes one a

> allusions to fascist governments are made, which would be fine, if these companies were governments. But they aren't: they have no power. It only takes one affected person to know what it's like to be spied on and abused with the information at hand. We don't need an entire country to come to shambles to know what such vast information collection could result in. You also seem to be making assumptions that governments cannot force a private company to part with data or that those in power cannot manage to create a warrant just to pay lip service to "due process". Additionally, there is also potential for abuse of the data by the private company's employees. Like how LOVEINT [1][2] exposed the fact that NSA employees used their privileges to spy on and track people in their personal spheres of life, Facebook employees may be doing the same without any kind of monitoring at all. We just don't know yet. [1]: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog-... [2]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/loveint-on-his-first-day-of-work-nsa-employee-spied-on-ex-girlfriend/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/loveint-on-his-fi...