434
The US Is Openly Stockpiling Dirt on All Its Citizens
(www.wired.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
434 points (100.0% liked)
politics
19170 readers
3997 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
We've known they've been doing this since at least Snowden, what's the story?
Remember that government agency that hoovers up all our data? Yeah, they're still doing that. Only they don't have to try as hard because they can just buy our info instead of snooping for it (but they're also still snooping).
Maybe it's good to remind people it's still happening because apparently everyone forgot we were told they've been doing this, for a while.
What really blows my mind are the people who attack Snowden while claiming this mass data collection is perfectly fine.
I love the "If you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide..."
I usually respond to those folks with "Can I watch you fuck your spouse? You're not doing anything wrong, they're your spouse, so you shouldn't have anything to hide"
The crazy part is, I've gotten a few enthusiastic "Yes" responses to that...
Nobody forgot. We all depend on the internet for daily life and livelihoods. We are largely powerless against these faceless institutions
Not that I disagree with you, but I was more responding to the fact that they said they can't find anybody else reporting about it. I was saying that there's not much to report because this is kind of old news. I understand why more news agencies aren't picking up on this, like, government agencies known for sucking up data are still sucking up data. -shrug-
I don't disagree, and you're absolutely right, but i'd argue there's still a difference between a government organization collecting the data themselves, and the same organization buying it from other brokers. It's semantics sure, but it's a new dimension of this fucketry.
Fair enough.
anecdotally: people chose to forget so that they don't have to change their world view. every single snowden revelations denier i know is either software engineer, network engineer, or devops
That's a good point, as a Sys Admin I've ran into a few coworkers like that myself. Not sure how somebody could deny it at this point tbh though.
They've been doing this since the 1950s, younger generations just didn't realize the scope until Snowden.
Yeah, that's why I said "at least" because I'm sure there's earlier examples but that was the largest recent example.
Yes and no - prism and related programs weren't that big a deal (besides morally and legally) - the NSA was collecting far more data than they could use at scale. It was a problem, but realistically it wouldn't affect normal people - you'd have to catch a lot of attention first to even be searched in that system. It couldn't be used for law enforcement or anything wide scale - the collection was there, but the analysis didn't scale
It was a problem because of where we are now - AI advancement means not only can they now process the insane amount of data they ingest and make terrifying associations, they can use the ridiculous amount of compute they've been building out to actually use all this data
We're most of the way down the slippery slope now, and still accelerating fast. The capability makes 1984 look quaint, and having the ability to flick on systems China drools over is pretty concerning
People don't even know they're trying to make us use id to use sites "to protect the children". Any site that might be inappropriate (of which, social media fits under the current definitions of) would be responsible for children getting access to their services - storing driver's licenses seems to be the popular idea for compliance. Google's web DRM might be pushed out so fast to offer this kind of service too
Kosa has bipartisan support, the president has come out strongly supporting it, and it's insane to me that people still don't care