Back Towards The Locus

In an interview with ABC, two NSA whistleblowers have discussed wire tapping and eavesdropping on “personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism“. That this took place was common knowledge, but the new detail is interesting: monitored Americans have apparently included aid workers and soldiers enjoying a spot of phone sex.

As if this wasn’t Storm-The-Winter-Palace worthy enough, the NSA employees were “ordered to transcribe these calls“. Where the transcriptions are kept is anyone’s guess.

Still, do at least know where the HMG will be stashing their own loot. Next month the Queen will announce the creation of a centralised database, which will store telephone, email, text and browsing information.

A remarkably convenient database it’ll be too, as it’ll allow the government to fish for the information of you and I:

“Would a protester at the Kingsnorth power station feel quite so confident in facing the police if she knew that the minute she was arrested, the police could find out that she’d just spent a week looking at abortion on the web? Would a rebel politician stand up against the prime minister if he knew security services had access to the 100 text messages a week he exchanged with a woman who wasn’t his wife?”

Indeed.

We are one of the most watched societies in the world, and excuses for surveillance are becoming more silly.