Since that time, warrants have had to specify the persons and places searched. Mass surveillance by the NSA does neither. In short, one of our countries' founding principles is the prohibition on mass searches and seizures.
Kids today (or my friends) post everything they do on Facebook or Twitter, why should we care if the government can see too?
What people choose to put on Facebook or Twitter (or Instagram or Tumblr or some other service) is almost always curated. People put the best or sometimes the worst things that happen to them online, but studies show they still keep things private, and restrict the audience for other information. A new poll shows young people may even be more privacy conscious than older adults.
We all know someone whose Facebook feed continued to show happy pictures even as they went through a terrible breakup or divorce. The point of privacy is control over the information that is available about you. Some people choose to share more, some choose to share less, but nearly everyone wants the power to pick and choose what information is available about them to their friends and to strangers, like future employers or NSA agents.
Google and Facebook have my information, so why shouldn't the NSA?
There are many privacy problems with how the giant Internet companies gather and use so much of your personal data. However, Google and Facebook do not have the power to arrest you and, unlike government surveillance, there are other choices for communication tools. For example, you can use DuckDuckGo instead of Google search.
Remember: while we may not like how companies collect a lot of our information, they are not under the same requirement to follow the Fourth Amendment. We need to protect the private information held by companies too, but the Constitution provides a foundation that always protects our communications from the prying eyes of government.
It's just metadata, so why should I care?
For the mass phone record collection program, the NSA has said it is not "listening in" to telephone calls. Instead they are collecting a record of everyone you call, who calls you, when you're on the phone, the length of your phone call, and at times, even your location.
This "metadata" can be as invasive as the content of your conversations. It can reveal your religious and political views, who you are dating (and when you break up), who your spouse and children are, your movements, and even information your closest friends and family don't know, such as medical conditions.
Additionally, the government is getting more than just metadata. We also know the government has obtained online content, including email, under separate programs, and used the data based on a guess that you are 51 percent likely to be foreign, by scanning large a portion of the total number of emails entering and exiting the United States. Metadata is only a part of the government spying programs.
This sucks, but there's nothing I can do!
Actually there is plenty you can do! First, join the over half-million others and sign our petition at stopwatching.us. Then call your representative in Congress--there are bills going through Congress right now that could curtail some of this spying and bring real transparency and accountability to the NSA. There are also some that need to be opposed so we don't end up legalizing much of this illegal surveillance.
There's lots you can do to fight NSA surveillance. But one of the most important things you can do is explain why this issue is important to friends and family. So please share this guide widely.
Reprinted from eff.org/deeplinks
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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