The senate hearings are just theater. Important questions like this should probably be async - compel the companies to provide specific answers on the record.
Especially Feinstein grilling him about privacy, when she votes for and often even sponsors every privacy invading bill and three letter agency out there.
It's not necessarily inconsistent to hold the position that government should be able to invade privacy in ways private corporations should not. As a concrete example, search warrants for crimes.
That said, I'm of the opinion Feinstein is largely senile at this point, and wish she'd retire.
She has supported NSA collection of information on all citizens of the US. There is no reasonable argument for this and it's not even in the same universe as search warrants.
Again, though, "the NSA should be allowed to do this" and "Facebook should not be allowed to do this" are not inherently contradictory.
I share your opinion that the NSA's surveilance is bad, and I'd assert it's unconstitutional, but the hypocrisy/contradiction you're trying to highlight still isn't necessarily there.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I can't square the logic that it's unconstitutional for the NSA to do this and legal for Facebook and yet somehow it makes sense to argue that it's ok for the NSA but not Facebook.
The government can kill me; Facebook cannot. The government can imprison me; Facebook cannot. The government can require I pay taxes; Facebook can not.
It shouldn't be surprising when similar disparities exist on surveillance. The NSA's program has yet to be deemed unconstitutional by the courts, which is what matters.
Ok I get you on that front, the government has a monopoly on violence, might makes right, yes. I mistakenly thought you were trying to argue that somehow it legally or moralistically made sense.
Yeah that's the thing when an everyday American--and especially a political insider--thinks of espionage, they seem to think of it from the protagonical perspective, like they're going to be James Bond and they're going to have legal privileges ("license to kill") and they're going to have the technological upper hand always. They think spying will benefit them, that they're destined to win because that's how it has always been. Despite identifying much more with the underdog in most contests, Americans don't identify with underdogs in espionage. With exceptions, like in movies about guys beating the system because of a branch of the government "went rogue."
