It's worse than we thought

Well, here we are again. We see warnings that it's possible our tech companies can spy on us. Hackers for sure. Any built-in camera or microphone can be used to pry on your privacy by anyone with enough know-how and determination to be that invasive.  There were a few news reports of people that had been violated that way, and it was a scary concept.

Then we hear that our tech companies are being pressed for access to our data by police forces and government agencies. Now at this same time there are reports of the NSA building the biggest facility out in Utah that can gather enough data on all of us to make our heads spin.  Some said they had nothing to hide, the ones that did probably said nothing but thought they could still get around anonymously. 

Then there were all the reassurances that it was just "metadata", numbers, locations and, maybe names, but nothing like contents of emails or phone conversations. Right? Okay, good. We sort of breathed a sigh of relief. Even President Obama said it was just the metadata. We can trust him, right? In all this hunting for terrorists a few rights have to be sacrificed once in a while, right? But we're still good. We'll put everything back when we're done, okay?

Last night I saw a blogger, who had a legal blog, and maybe a law firm, not sure, say after the latest "revelation", that was too much and she could no longer stay online. She was shutting down her website and going offline as much as possible. Groklaw was the name of the blog. Here's the link: http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/20/nsa-spying-leads-legal-blog-groklaw-to-shut-down-in-a-post-that-will-break-your-heart/ Previously two other email services had shut down siting too much surveillance, can't recall their names right now. One of them had to do with Mr. Snowden.

Well, now reports come out about broader surveillance reach by the NSA than was thought before.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324108204579022874091732470.html

Now this is still under the auspices of hunting the bad guys, and that may still be valid, since we're not on real good terms with the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Queda. So a few innocent Americans get caught up in our nets...oops, sorry.

Well, it seems it's not as bad as I first feared when I saw the headline. But unfortunately, the potential for abuse is still there, and we could all be being watched and listened to regardless of what they say. That thought will always be in the back of my mind.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop,

Take care.