A brief history of the surveillance debate

[WhyBother]

@anotherone

@doctorow

something we all agree is proportionate and legitimate

That’s the part that’s been bugging me lately. Somehow we’ve reached a point where it’s assumed the government needs to be able to decrypt your data, log who and when you call, and have access to everything. When did we have that conversation as a nation?

Basically, because people who don’t care about privacy (“What do I have to hide?”) answered polls that said they were okay with the FBI breaking in to terrorists’ cell phones. (Sure the shooting in California was tragic, but basically no more tragic than a bus accident. We’ve been doing much worse to ourselves for ages.)