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Death by a thousand cuts. Building a haystack to search for needles isn't free. If it's not delivering enough needles then people are going to be under pressu
by dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Death by a thousand cuts.
Building a haystack to search for needles isn't free. If it's not delivering enough needles then people are going to be under pressure to end the program. I think a lot of people in government have smartened up to the fact that these things can be just as easily used against them if they fall out of favor and that having this sort of ongoing data collection could become liability if the wrong kind of people are in charge. The kinds of things Muller has chosen to prosecute certainly makes a lot of people in Washington nervous about their skeletons in the closet so there's less political tolerance of these kinds of programs than there once was. Snowden's leaks and greater public knowledge of these programs have reduced public support. It frees up resources to go after Russian trolls (or whatever), hunting terrorists is so 2005. There really is no way you can justify a program like this in 2019 (or so we hope), they've been proven ineffective and unpopular.
- bellerose 8y agoIt's not really a needle in haystack problem. If you record every moment of all your citizens. You can build a calendar application where you enter the name of the person and go through all the moments in question throughout the days of curiosity. Specifically when that person is under suspicions of some criminal involvement. I feel sorry for china because I can only imagine how much more data besides just phone calls are collected from citizens unaware.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mycall 8y agoConversely, their vacuum everything approach could have landed them additional evidence against Russian hackers.
- jessaustin 8y agoIt would be nice if NSA did something about ransomware, but I'm not holding my breath... they seem to have other priorities.
- raxxorrax 8y agoLet us hope that you are correct. We would still need to fortify laws against data collection that is fiercely enforced (although already being a requirement in many constitutions in the western sphere). That would require oversight with severe consequences for any program breaking the rules. Personal consequences up the chain. Intelligence agencies have morphed to petty criminal gangs. Even if you can easily argue that they have been criminal before...