NSA's Domestic Spying Grows As Agency Sweeps Up Data

Who knew the government was into social networks? This sounds like the Total Information Awareness program that the Congress defunded a few years back. This kind of think is in some ways the natural extension of power through a combo of AI techniques and ICT s - and, it would seem to me, is a difficult genie to put back in the bottle. There needs to be a new set of protections (like the 4th amendment) but for personal information and internet use...

While the Fourth Amendment guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures," the legality of data-sweeping relies on the government's interpretation of a 1979 Supreme Court ruling allowing records of phone calls -- but not actual conversations -- to be collected without a warrant.

Times are a changin'.