Replies

(1) The issue is not, and shouldn't be metadata. We don't own our metadata, which should be obvious.

(2) The issue is journalists and others being hacked and tapped, which has happened and which we did not learn from Snowden - since Snowden's handlers think this is a good practice.

(3) This goes beyond Obama and the Democrats being scum. I don't want Red China deciding our elections any more than I want corrupt Democrat machine officials deciding them.

Personally, I would like the federal government to NOT be collecting our metadata.

I don’t think the issue is as clear-cut as it sounds; I know that the Supreme Court has made it so, but we were founded in a time when it was impossible for anybody to keep track of the metadata for an entire country.

You had to take great effort to even collect information, and often what you did would require a warrant. And if it didn’t, the shear complexity meant you could only target a few people, and you’d be targeting people who were likely targets.

I don’t think we have yet fully understood how the internet has changed everything. Sure, you can’t argue that where you walk down the street is private, but you probably assume nobody really knows where you go, unless you are already somebody they have interest in.

But now, we have enough assets, and enough storage, that we could literally store the entire dump of every webcam in the country. And if 3 years from now you are arrested for something, and they want to find out about you, they could go back in time, and figure out every person you interacted with for the past 5 years.

And if the government had a leader like Nixon, and decided to target an enemy, and managed to put the right person in charge of the program, they could make an enemies list that would show every person in an organization, and everybody they talked to, and who they talked to.

It is really like 1984. And frankly, we aren’t ready for that. We all commit little crimes, because there is a law for everything. We all also do bad things. We are all sinners. I don’t want the government to know I was cheating on my wife, or that I went to a strip club, or that I skipped Church, etc.

So even it if is legal, I think I’m quite willing to accept some risk in the war on terror in exchange for the government NOT having a record of my entire life ready and waiting for the right moment.

Snowden is still a traitor.