"Even I – despite my strong
libertarian convictions and considerable skepticism of
centralized authority – could not have imagined that
virtually all of the large technology companies to whom
I had entrusted large amounts of my personal information
– Google, Facebook, Skype, Microsoft, YouTube – were
participants in the surveillance, enabling the NSA to
build covert backdoors into their systems to steal the
most confidential possible personal information. From
e-mails, to search histories, to credit-card
transactions – all of this is within the NSA’s reach;
all of this could be used to destroy the reputation and
life of anyone suspected of being a threat. It is only
by the mercy, or the oversight, or the higher priorities,
of our political masters that any of us retain vestiges
of the freedom we think we have."
To me, it matters that the government can store information and pull it our on a whim to convict someone and ruin their life. As the author notes, on the very notion the government suspects you of wrong doing. That's waaayyyy too much power to leave to mortal beings.
The 'if you have nothing to hide' argument gets a little weaker when you consider the fact the state often prosecutes people they know are innocent to begin with but will stop at nothing to get a conviction for political expediency.
Why would a level-headed citizen consent to this, or worse, intellectually accept this is the 'price to pay for security?'
Snowden may be a criminal in the eyes of the state, but he's opened our eyes to something much, much bigger. It's up to us to decide what type of society we want.
Even as I type this, the data is being transferred from Google to the government.
This my friends, is 1984.
Welcome.
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