Sunday, June 9, 2013

Data Mining

This week's scandal involves the NSA and its plan to use information from telecom giants like Verizon to identify and locate potential terrorists. The authority to do stuff like that was enacted during all that post-9/11 patriotic anti-terrorist frenzy. It was a bad idea at the time, but Republicans weren't too bothered because the country was being run by the likes of Bush 43, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, and Karl Rove.

Now that the ON is in charge, conservatives are pissing blood over Big Government intrusion and threats to individual liberty. The same people who have been against FISA all along are equally chapped off. Add the blocs together and it makes a majority.

I have a question, though. Why is it necessary for companies like Verizon to accumulate all that data on its customers in the first place? If I can't trust the feds to use the information appropriately, why should I trust profit-oriented monoliths like Verizon?

The bottom line is that media-driven public fury will probably force the government to scale back, if not terminate, the surveillance activities in question. And as soon as terrorists cause another big explosion that kills a lot of American citizens, the public will be screaming about government's failure to prevent the attack. You'll never go broke overestimating the irrationality of the American people.

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