Behind the NSA US Wiretapping Scandal

Everyone's heard about the president's use of the NSA to surveil American citizens. Many lawyers, historians, and politicians will debate this one ad nauseum I'm sure, and many will certainly be better able than I to judge the situation's legality. Something that has been interestingly absent from the discussion in the media however, is how such surveillance is even possible. Hannibal at Arstechnica presents a great article that discusses what we know and can infer about the system that allowed the NSA to do what they said they did.

In addition to that, the author wrote a follow up piece discussing the merits of such blanket attempts to stymie "terrorism" by watching society at large. Please grok it here.

I think that he touches on some important things. Notably:
• Large scale surveillance is possible and difficult to detect/oversee for potential abuse.
• It is not effective, necessarily.
• It gives a false sense of security and takes away resources from better programs.
• It represents a long term decrease in personal and social freedoms that is almost certainly permanent without being able to address the stated threat of terrorism.

via ars

Raul