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> "In any case, the Justice memo says "any arguable privacy intrusion arising from the collection of telephony metadata would be outweighed by the public intere
by jsmeaton 13y ago
> "In any case, the Justice memo says "any arguable privacy intrusion arising from the collection of telephony metadata would be outweighed by the public interest in identifying suspected terrorist operatives and thwarting terrorist plots."
A little footnote at the bottom is all this is worth? How do they know this? How do they know that "any arguable privacy intrusion" is outweighed by the public interest in identifying "terrorist" plots, when no one was given the choice and no debate has occurred? That was (allegedly) Snowdens' entire point of releasing the information that he did!
Not to mention that the premise isn't as simple as "privacy intrusion vs thousands of people getting blown up".
- AsymetricCom 13y agobecause they debated this very thing before it was passed into law. it was public as well. perhpas you heard of the PATRIOT act?
- wpietri 13y agoFor the record, if I ever get blown up, I don't want to be used as an excuse for stripping citizens of their liberties. My death is inevitable; freedom isn't. We thought it worth paying in blood to get that freedom, and I think it even more valuable today. And honestly, as a citizen, I see myself as partly responsible for a lot of the things that drive terrorist actions against the US. I know that if somebody blew up my family's wedding, I'd want revenge. That's not to say that I'd be happy to be killed in retaliation for some US government idiocy. But if the cycle of revenge violence has to stop somewhere, let it be with me.