Eric Posner: "The NSA’s Metadata Program Is Perfectly Constitutional"

"The other side is that criminals can use technology today in a way they could not in the past. There were no jihadi websites in 1979. It was harder for criminals to transfer money or communicate instructions across borders. Bomb-making directions were not available on the Web."

"There are also major differences in public attitudes about privacy. People can more easily find out things about each other today than in 1979, thanks to the Web, and so people now expect strangers—including potential friends, mates, and bosses—to know more about them today than they did in the past. People can also more easily share personal information about themselves, and rather than refrain from doing so in order to protect their privacy, they enthusiastically post photos and videos of themselves on Facebook and other social media sites. Thus, it is possible that people’s sense of privacy is also greatly altered, as if the whole country moved from a big city to a small town, trading in the benefits of anonymity and independence for the advantages of community and security."

I get the feeling were are not going to "recognize ourselves" in 10 years.

Salon via Instapundit's notice of professor Eric Posner's new blog

“The whole purpose is student safety”

"Glendale Unified Hires Local Company To Monitor Students’ Social Media Posts."

The Glendale Unified School District has hired a Hermosa Beach company to monitor public social media posts made by its students to find out when teens are in trouble or causing it.

Superintendent Richard Sheehan said Geo Listening is analyzing the posts of 13,000 students at eight Glendale middle and high schools.

The goal is to give school administrators critical information as soon as possible.

 "Critical information as soon as possible."

NSA already larger that Pentagon

Larger than Pentagon in square footage, and growing by 50% within a decade, and that is only Ft. Meade, MD. 

Its civilian/military workforce has increased by 1/3 to to 33,000 employees, since that fateful day when everything changed. For the worse. Privacy-wise.

Its budget has doubled. It depends on triple the number of private companies as before from 150 to 500 by Washington Post's count. 

"We track 'em you whack 'em" 

The article describes how a SEAL call to track a phone with urgency and without the usual controls set in motion a a practice that expanded to operations in Iraq. 

* 2007 ground breaking for $ 1 billion facility Ft. Gordon 4,000 employees. (They do not say, but Ft. Gordon is in Augusta Georgia.

*  Outgrew  250,000 sq.ft, #358 million addition to existing facilities, Wahiawa, is where Snowdon worked

* Added facilities in San Antonio, Texas, Lackland AFB, 

* Colorado, Buckley AFB in Aurora.

* NSA station at RAF Menwith Hill Yourkshire grows by 1/3 to 2,500 employees.

* Pine Gap Australia added hundreds of new employees. 

NSA adds to its statement to the Post, "The notion of constant, unchecked, or senseless growth is a myth."

It is not notion, it is observation. The growth is constant and unchecked, senseless and menacing, controlled and managed by us, we have proven untrustworthy. It is not fear, it is observation of facts. The objective is power. The power resists checks. There is no balance. Trust is eroded. Trust is destroyed. 

Washington Post