State surveillance

So, yesterday's big news was the release of a secret court order (there's three words that should never be together) requiring Verizon to turn over records on all their users' calls to the National Security Agency (NSA).  Odds are fair they're not the only company being compelled to turn over such records, but this is proof that it's happening with Verizon, at least.

Not surprisingly, there are those in government who are doing their best to downplay the seriousness of this issue.  The Senate majority leader wants everybody to "calm down", since this has been going on for years.  If anything, that only makes it worse, especially since, according to another senator quoted in that same story, every member of the Senate knew it was happening.

Then, from the other side of the aisle, you have another senator saying that he's a Verizon customer, and he's "glad" that this is happening, continuing on with the ever-popular "if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" line of argument... and you know, maybe, as an individual citizen in a free and open state, that might be true.  However, I would expect a senator to put more thought into his own longevity and that of his party than that... if the past decade or two has demonstrated anything, it's that a not-insignificant fraction of politicians at many levels of government have made career-limiting 'indiscretions', and that's just the ones that have gotten caught.  Having full knowledge of who's calling who at all times could be a powerful tool for digging up dirt on such politicians, either to coerce them into doing your bidding or to replace them with someone more pliable... and that pretty well goes for any not-for-life position in government.  If only for that reason, this sort of thing should be stopped permanently and immediately.

Of course, the odds of that happening are vanishingly slim, while the idea of "it's OK, as long as it's to fight the War on Terror" has such a hold on so many... and this, on its own, probably wouldn't be enough to shake that hold.  But then, there's today's news that the NSA is apparently tapping into the servers of multiple popular tech companies, like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple... which at least some of the companies involved are flatly denying at the moment.  Who knows, maybe, just maybe, if enough of these stories come out at the same time, there will be some drive to shut this sort of thing down.  As usual, not holding my breath, but it's a nice thought.