The Snowden Effect

 Looks like Snowy did it again, ahead of the US declassifying documents.

Thanks anyway!
 I think no one is surprised to learn that "nearly everything a typical user does on the Internet." is stored by the NSA and God knows what contractor.
It's not that they're looking at the stuff we all do online, it's the fact that they're storing it. That is way more dangerous. So much for the "we only collect metadata" excuse, yeah right.
I sure hope Snowden isn't coming back here. There's been some conjecture that the reason Bradley Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy, was so Russia would notice we're really not that mean, C'mon back Snowy! We got a cell with your name on it, you don't even have to bother with clothes or talk to anyone. FOR A LONG TIME!
XKeyscore, PRISM, whatever, I kind of feel sorry for the poor fool reading my emails and googling around the internet. Seeing as I'm such a troublemaker. But the thing is, you don't even have to be one. 
They have to have it all. They're not going to give any of it up. Even if it's gonna lay around and collect dust. I guess they think, "Hey I might use that some day" Just like the hoarder's on the Discovery channel. Maybe they will. Because they're not gonna stop. The best thing is our tax dollars are paying the government to spy on us.
Check this out;

"If a 29-year-old school dropout could come in and take out massive, massive amounts of data, it's obvious there weren't adequate controls," Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, the committee chairman, said at the hearing. "Has anybody been fired?"
John Inglis, the NSA's deputy director, said no one had been dismissed and no one had offered to resign."
Goes along with my theory that no one is accountable for anything anymore. But who cares what I think?
One thing that isn't being discussed is the opportunity for black mail.
Another thing is the data that's collected is presumably being analyzed for some kind of "profile" of some sort of "person of interest" based on some sort of pattern recognition. Right?  Orwell must be spinning in his grave. A lot of people are pissed off about this. I wish they'd get mad about unemployment and government benefits being cut for the needy, while we pay for this. There's never too much money for spying on people. At least we can all take comfort knowing that someone in our government is actually listening to the people.