Whistleblowers have been coming forward, the people have been loudly criticizing it, we elected the Presidential candidate who was most opposed to it in both of the last two elections (the second guy was distinctly more of a "lesser of two evils" than the first), and we've been taking them to court.

So, to recap, that's soap box, ballot box, and jury box that we've been using. To claim that we're letting them get away with it is to betray your ignorance of the facts. Short of revolution, we have done everything we can. This is the oligarchy ignoring the law and the will of the people.

"We need our opiate to manipulate the masses! It is hard enough to get ordinary people to accept self-destructive falsehoods when we package them with a message that the left is anti-religion. How can we sell our bullshit if we lose the church?!?" - Heartland Institute

And if "But I have other classes!" is the best excuse that you can come up with, then you're going to deserve it.

Hey, that's not fair. OP clearly stated that he was also busy trying to get laid and did not understand the course material. Clearly when you add those two elements he deserves at least a B-.

TL;DR: The upside of being under continuous surveillance is that everyone else is too. It is the same argument as, "Because terrorists might get caught."

Here's just one example of the downside: Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and similar will all have zero attendance as soon as employers stop hiring people who have been seen at an AA/NA meeting. That will be a reality within ten years, as private license plate tracking databases come online.

Doubt it? Ask yourself this: Would a typical "profit over everything" manager hire someone he knew was in NA? That guy is going to abuse these databases as they come online. That is reality.

I'm gonna pretend you're actually interested in the answer, but let's face it, we're really talking past each other, to our fellow Slashdotters. Thank you for smoking.

The reason for the mass move to encryption -- like Wikipedia and Google moving to default HTTPS, and people like me working on making encryption more approachable by the masses -- was the revelation that non-suspects were being monitored. That is why there is now a haystack within which to hide the needles, and that is why the encryption is now too strong for the intelligence agencies to break when we really want them to be able to.

Moreover, while I'm here, and since I want terrorists to get caught, let me add this: The solution is not increasing the level of distrust between citizens and government. The solution is restoring the reasonable, moderated, level of trust that we used to have in the executive branch. That starts with the ones who created the rift, and that is not the people who were sending all their traffic in the clear; it is the assholes who recorded it all and denied they were doing it.

"It's changed the very nature of counter-terrorist work from one that has been traditionally reliant on having good monitoring capability of communications to one that essentially doesn't provide that anymore."

You backed us into a corner by monitoring non-suspects.

It's your fault.

Dickhead.

Intelligence officials were, behind the scenes, questioning whether the benefits of gathering counter-terrorism information justified the colossal costs involved. Then Snowden went public and essentially forced the agency's hand.,

So they could have said, "OK, you know what, you're right. The benefits of this program are outweighed by its costs, the American people have a right to be involved in the decision about surveillance, and we are going to shut the program down." They would have been the bigger men, demonstrating that standing united is more important than ego.

But instead, they cried, "NO! If it's your idea, if you're trying to force us to stop, well then FUCK YOU! We'll do what we want, whether you like it or not! YOU CAN'T TELL US WHAT TO DO!" Like a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum. Can't back down from a fight, that might make them look like they don't have a giant chip on their shoulders.

make your own web page...mass email your friends...signing up for a blogging site...signing into and out of websites...locking yourself into a relationship with a company...basic internet skills that every single American should be taught in High School.

Wow. That really is a huge concept. We're trying to teach everyone to write software, which is like teaching everyone to be an engineer, but we're not teaching them the skills to be independent on the Internet, which a much higher percentage could and should have.

Very well said, and insightful. Thank you!

Ed Snowden has stated that mass surveillance is "about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power." A sentiment which has been echoed by others. Who, then, stands to gain from mass surveillance?

Whoever has the best combination of intel and computer aided psychological operations tools. We The People can win, because we have the numbers on our side by an enormous margin. We just have to recognize that we're in a war and beat our plowshares into swords.

Learn big data. Learn information security. Learn hacking. Learn mesh networking and darknets. Learn cryptography and steganography. Build a client for your favorite communications platform and start spidering the new commons. Whatever tickles your fancy, or all of the above. Network with others with those skills. Get your friends to register and start aging off multiple social network personas, each with credible histories. Develop a following, or multiple followings with different personas, on new media.

Best case, none of the things that look like they are already happening actually come to pass, and you'll have a valuable career skill set. Worst case, you'll have the tools you need to defend the nation from a bloodless coup built on next generation propaganda.

Of course, anyone with compelling evidence to the contrary (or better yet, proof to the contrary)

Homeopathy that has been proven to work is called "medicine." That's how a lot of medicine gets invented; people use some tree bark and goat liver concoction to cure prickly heat, and lo-and-behold, it works! So researches come along and break it down to find the active ingredients, put it through proper testing, synthesize it, and get a patent if they can. Even if they can't lock down the active ingredient, they tweak the formula a bit, slap a trademark on it, and run a media blitz combined with distribution channel pressure to take market share. They make a shit-ton of money doing it, and they're not just letting the good answers sit there unexploited.

NCC Group, and its security research arm, Cryptography Services, will carry out the code review

In related news, NCC Group today received 37 applications from extraordinary qualified candidates, all of whom -- by some extraordinary coincidence -- live in Langley, VA.

Is this the first time we've gotten documentation of actual full take occurring? It's the first one I recall; if it's not, does anyone have a link to past reports?

All the scum responsible for the illegal spying go on trial at the same time.

I'd settle for just stopping the illegal spying. Heck, I'd consider it a step forward if they just stopped the parts they agreed were wrong and said they were going to stop.

Do you know what will happen to her? Not. A. God. Damn. Thing.

Not quite. Here's what'll happen to her: Once again, like in 2008, the Democratic Party Machine - which loves her not despite her total corruption but because of it - will try to ram her down our throats. As in 2008, we will cry out, "AYFKM?!?"

Similarly, Mastercard, Visa, and Paypal are privately owned, but when they cut off Mega, that was wrong, right?