I think anyone who still believes the mass surveillance isn't used over 95 percent of the time for different reasons than "defending against terrorism", is being naive at this point.
This is mainly about industrial espionage, and maintaining the power over the world (by any means necessary), primarily for the NSA, then for the US government, and then for their partners in the military industrial complex.
They know that mass surveillance is a treasure trove for all kinds of scenarios, present, and future, against anyone who might ever question US's wishes - ever. They just can't imagine giving that up.
For me to trust the US government or to truly trust any US company again, these things would need to happen first, for US to re-establish its credibility in the world as a beacon of democracy and freedoms, that they've been pretending to uphold for a long time:
- pass Rush Holt's Surveillance State Repeal Act passes, to dump the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act altogether (as a first step)
- cut NSA's budgets (both secret and public) to 10-20 percent of what they are now, because if they aren't, then simply repealing the laws won't change much
- throw out the secret FISA Court, or make it dramatically more transparent, and like a real Court
- overhaul the Senate Intelligence Committee (get rid of people like Feinstein and Rogers)
- fire (or even imprison) Clapper, Alexander and Holder, and possibly even impeach Obama (to really send a message to future presidents that mass surveillance is completely unacceptable)
- make it explicitly clear that any private communication of any citizen in US or on US territory needs a regular warrant (one that actually respects the 4th Amendment). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the US Constitution applied to people on US soil and not just "US citizens". Couldn't that be interpreted to defend the data on US soil, too? If I buy a home in US, isn't it defended by US laws? Why can't my data be, too?
For non-US citizens, there also needs to be an international treaty that says that if a country wants another country's citizen's data, then it needs to contact his/her local government, before it can obtain.
I think it's only reasonable. Just because my data happens to travel through US backbones, doesn't mean the US government has power to willy-nilly get my data as they want, and also force US companies to give it to them, breaching the privacy that US company promised me when I signed-up with them.
Something like this is only possible right now, because like with all rights, people haven't fought against it yet. There's no reason why such a treaty couldn't exist. For the Internet to become a nice, non-hostile environment again (talking about governments abusing their power here), we need to make it encrypted and secure by default, but we also need the legal framework to support that, and severely limit and punish government abuses.
This is mainly about industrial espionage, and maintaining the power over the world (by any means necessary), primarily for the NSA, then for the US government, and then for their partners in the military industrial complex.
They know that mass surveillance is a treasure trove for all kinds of scenarios, present, and future, against anyone who might ever question US's wishes - ever. They just can't imagine giving that up.
For me to trust the US government or to truly trust any US company again, these things would need to happen first, for US to re-establish its credibility in the world as a beacon of democracy and freedoms, that they've been pretending to uphold for a long time:
- pass Rush Holt's Surveillance State Repeal Act passes, to dump the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act altogether (as a first step)
H.R 2818: http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/house-bill/2818
- cut NSA's budgets (both secret and public) to 10-20 percent of what they are now, because if they aren't, then simply repealing the laws won't change much
- throw out the secret FISA Court, or make it dramatically more transparent, and like a real Court
- overhaul the Senate Intelligence Committee (get rid of people like Feinstein and Rogers)
- fire (or even imprison) Clapper, Alexander and Holder, and possibly even impeach Obama (to really send a message to future presidents that mass surveillance is completely unacceptable)
- make it explicitly clear that any private communication of any citizen in US or on US territory needs a regular warrant (one that actually respects the 4th Amendment). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the US Constitution applied to people on US soil and not just "US citizens". Couldn't that be interpreted to defend the data on US soil, too? If I buy a home in US, isn't it defended by US laws? Why can't my data be, too?
For non-US citizens, there also needs to be an international treaty that says that if a country wants another country's citizen's data, then it needs to contact his/her local government, before it can obtain.
I think it's only reasonable. Just because my data happens to travel through US backbones, doesn't mean the US government has power to willy-nilly get my data as they want, and also force US companies to give it to them, breaching the privacy that US company promised me when I signed-up with them.
Something like this is only possible right now, because like with all rights, people haven't fought against it yet. There's no reason why such a treaty couldn't exist. For the Internet to become a nice, non-hostile environment again (talking about governments abusing their power here), we need to make it encrypted and secure by default, but we also need the legal framework to support that, and severely limit and punish government abuses.