Government Internet Surveillance Up

Harvey Manfrenjensenton writes "According to this story at Newhouse News Service, the assault on Americans' rights known as the Patriot Act, passed by Congress in October, has produced results that are as disturbing -- and rampant -- as could have been anticipated. Law enforcement used to need a court order to tap your phone, read your mail, etc. Now they just need a whim. ISP's and Telcos can barely keep up with the volume of requests by Feds wanting to read your email." EFF's analysis of the Patriot Act is good reading.

Comments

The real worry...

[smack_attack]

Right now we are lucky... lucky because there is a giant imbalance between information and the means to process it.

But that gap is going to shrink... as more programmers and database analysts get hired and design methods for extracting the information given to them.

Do you really think the government's insatiable hunger for information is going to diminish? The key to finding terrorists is not in looking at their criminal history, racial profiling or by their favorite books.The key is in finding those who dissent against certain policies of the US and take a best guess at whether they are committed enough to lash out against them that they are willing to take their own life or other's lives in order to acheive attention for their cause.

So think about that the next time you complain about gun laws or taxes or the war on drugs or whether your speeding ticket was unfair. Because when the supply of information is dwarfed by the ability to interpret it, it may be your front door that gets kicked down at three in the morning.