Near the end of the week last week, the lastest “the US government is spying on US citizens” scandal broke. For 24 hours I tried to ignore it but once big tech companies, specifically Facebook, Google, and Yahoo, started coming out with their denials about being involved in PRISM, I got sucked into all the chatter. I was able to ignore it yesterday because I took a digital sabbath but ended up reading a bunch of stuff about it this morning.
While I’m a strong believer in civil liberties and am opposed to the Patriot Act, I long ago gave up the notion that we have any real data privacy. I’ve regularly fought against attempts at outrageous new laws like SOPA/PIPA but I’m not naive and realize that I’m vastly outgunned by the people who want this kind of stuff. Whenever I get asked if I’ll write huge checks to play big money politics against this stuff, I say no. And recently, I’ve started quoting Elon Musk’s great line at the All Things Digital Conference, “If we give in to that, we’ll get the political system we deserve.”
I read around 50 articles on things this morning. I’m no more clear on what is actually going on as the amount of vagueness, statements covered with legal gunk, illogical statements, and misdirection is extraordinary, even for an issue like this one.
Following are some of the more interesting things I read today.
- We are shocked, shocked…
- Government Says Secret Court Opinion on Law Underlying PRISM Program Needs to Stay Secret
- It’s our own fault… Deal with it.
- Cowards
- Tech Companies Concede to Surveillance Program
- Is the NSA outsourcing its domestic spying to Israel?
- Nothing To Hide
- No One Is Talking About The Insane Law That Lets Authorities Read Any Email Over 180 Days Old
- Room 641A
- What If China Hacks the NSA’s Massive Data Trove?
And I always thought PRISM was about teleportation.
And finally, the Wikipedia article, like all Wikipedia articles, is the definitive source of all PRISM information at this point, at least to the extent that anything around PRISM is accurate.