There's a famous quote from Ben Franklin that gets thrown around a lot these days, given the copious amounts of egregious invasions that the federal government is performing on its citizens: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." It sounds nice, but it unfortunately doesn't quite capture the essence of what we're dealing with.
Let's take a moment to connect some of the dots in the latest round of the NSA scandals, and recap some of what we know is happening:
- Loads of phone companies handed over call records to the NSA voluntarily, and then denied it
- AT&T's Internet traffic is being routed through government black boxes, which capture our information
- The federal government has tried to dismiss cases brought against AT&T
- The FCC is refusing to investigate AT&T or the NSA because of "national security concerns"
- Freedom of Information Act requests regarding captured phone records and traffic have been denied
- The Attorney General and the FBI are encouraging Internet companies to retain customer records for up to two years.