
NSA to release estimate of number of Americans under surveillance - chenster
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-surveillance-idUSKBN1452FX?il=0
======
chakalakasp
Well, now, depending on how you define surveillance, it's either 0 or 319
million, give or take.

~~~
aaronmdjones
I was just thinking the same thing.

Given that Yahoo, Google, Microsoft et al recently-ish obtained permission to
release rough numbers of NSLs and such ("in FY 2015 we received between 1000
and 2000 requests for user data"), I would not at all be surprised if the
result is:

"We have surveilled between 1 and 318 million American citizens"

~~~
Nomentatus
Same thought. Metadata won't count for them, obviously, or the answer is
"all." Probably they won't count storage of transcribed content either (again
the answer might well be "all.") Here's guessing that they won't count
multiple bots scrutinizing transcriptions of every word you've said in emails
or on the phone as "surveillance", either. I personally wouldn't be shocked if
the correct answer in this latter case is also "all."

I might add that for those who think that they have nothing to hide, that's
the wrong question. As I've found out personally, the real question is whether
every single friend of yours you contact, let's say by phone, has anything to
hide. When interrogated, they won't be told that surveillance was the source,
they will be told or led to believe YOU were the source, and turned them in.
Then the fun really begins. [Note that in the incident I just described, an
acquaintance's wife was dragged in for what was a criminal offense at the
time, but this offence has since been removed from the criminal code, so I
don't feel bad about not reporting it at the time. She was not, to the best of
my knowledge, prosecuted. Surveillance on me has since increased, however; and
my circle of friends decreased.]

------
satyajeet23
I will totally believe those numbers.

------
Pica_soO
Breaking News: Secret-service agency venturing into census statistics

------
kahnpro
Let me guess, 319 million, less the number of people who don't use the
internet or make phone calls?

