

Calm Down - The Government Doesn't Care About Your Data - lemcoe9
http://blog.lemcoe.com/calm-down-government-surveillance.html

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tmuir
The problem is mission creep. The Patriot Act was enacted to fight terrorism.
But the powers granted by the act have been utilized in over 100 times as many
drug related cases as terrorism related cases [1].

To think that these surveillance capabilities won't be used to gain political
and economical advantages is foolish. Der Spiegel has an article claiming that
OPEC is being spied upon by the NSA and GCHQ. [2]

Considering the track record of these agencies conveniently redefining common
English words, such as "collect", who is to say what constitutes a "national
security interest"?

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/patriot-
ac...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/patriot-act-used-to-
fight-more-drug-dealers-than-terrorists/2011/09/07/gIQAcmEBAK_blog.html)

[2] [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-and-
gc...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-and-gchq-spied-
on-opec-a-932777.html)

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qwertyuiopee
I still find it creepy and unhealthy for security as a whole.

If a backdoor is planted on a system for monitoring purposes for example then
it is a potential security flaw which could be exploited by anyone, not just
the deeply caring and forever protective authorities. Am I wrong?

