Rand Paul wants you to think that large-scale data mining on (publicly available) metadata is a horrible thing, and a massive threat to your privacy. Even when that data gathering is done with a warrant.
So it shows just how disingenuous his whole stunt was, that he’s doing his own privacy-threatning database building. His supporters have been duped. He was grandstanding with the national interest in order to support his Presidential campaign.
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Part of the USA PATRIOT act ensured NSA could spy on conversations foreigners were having, that involved data passing into America. After 9/11, when terrorist cells came here and murdered many Americans, we understood the need for that.
Well, some Republicans remembered, but Rand Paul forgot, and it sounds like Paul won.
I wonder if the Islamic State will send flowers to thank him.
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So it turns out that while Google, for months now, has been driving all sorts of hysteria about NSA and “spying,” the firm has been grossly negligent in its own privacy protections. The firm admits Google Hangouts is completely open to spying within Google, a basic design error that shows Google is not at all taking seriously the idea that government is spying on people.
It’s all a sham, just like Netflix and Net Neutrality. So we shouldn’t be surprised to find out NSA isn’t even collecting very much data. Oops.
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