“”I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.”
Personally I don’t believe he could do this. But he claims he could and, if so, this is definitely new news. But if, in fact, he couldn’t then I think it puts much of what he has told us in doubt.
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It’s the way the Internet works. If you have access to the servers, you can grab the packets. If you can access enough servers you can guarantee you get all of someone’s traffic, as the only difference is what server it is traversing when. Whether you can decrypt anything secured is another matter, but I’d expect NSA has the horsepower for that.
By the way, are you unfamiliar with the Internet “museum” that flashes (or did) thousands of e-mails every minute on displays?
It’s the way the Internet works. If you have access to the servers, you can grab the packets. If you can access enough servers you can guarantee you get all of someone’s traffic, as the only difference is what server it is traversing when. Whether you can decrypt anything secured is another matter, but I’d expect NSA has the horsepower for that.
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I think you are right about this. But I still question the server access. Do we really believe that the NSA can connect to the Gmail servers, for example, and continuously archive that data including the content. Technically they could. Do they? I doubt it.
But if they are then this is truly the scandal that most Freepers believe it is.