If someone says to you that a governmental agency has been collecting data on more than 97 billion emails and 124 billion phone calls in just 30 days, you'd probably think that it is not possible. Imagine a system that has the capacity to reach up to 75% of US emails (!). This is impressive.
Unfortunately, this is absolutely true. Nobody has rejected it at NSA.One year after the Snowden disclosure of surveillance activities, the US Congress has had to change existing laws and Courts that allowed such practices.
The international data collected in a single thirty-day period from Germany (500 million), Brazil (2.3 billion), and India (13.5 billion). And yet other files showed collection of metadata in cooperation with the governments of France (70 million), Spain (60 million), Italy (47 million), the Netherlands (1.8 million), Norway (33 million), and Denmark (23 million).As you may imagine this is not a US issue, but unfortunately the impact and public pressure for change over politicians is different across countries.
I've finished reading the Greenwald book and The Snowden files. I suggest you to start with Greenwald one, the original source better than the remake. I think that one of the most interesting parts is when he explains the rationale for his information disclosure, in Chapter 2:
“The true measurement of a person’s worth isn’t what they say they believe in, but what they do in defense of those beliefs,” he said. “If you’re not acting on your beliefs, then they probably aren’t real.”
“I do not want to live in a world where we have no privacy and no freedom, where the unique value of the Internet is snuffed out,” Snowden told me. He felt compelled to do what he could to stop that from happening or, more accurately, to enable others to make the choice whether to act or not in defense of those values.The book is a milestone over the conflict between freedom and surveillance, over the value of privacy in our current times. It explains many details and raises a lot of uncertainty when using internet for any reason.
PS. By the way, I haven't seen any request to our politicians about how many emails have been suplied to US authorities, how they can justify such leakage and how they have selected them. Somebody must responsible for that.
PS. New report on integrated care, by Antares.
Parov Stelar, All night
