Re: modulated outrage...
@martinusher; "I figure that the intelligence services have confused intelligence with data collection. They collect scads of data but none of it means a thing until after something happens -- when its pretty useless."
You assume that it's been collected in a good faith attempt to Protect Us All From Terrorists and Paedos, and is thus a failure. (#)
Let's just say that on principle, it makes sense for those in power to have as much information on as many people as possible. That way, if someone turns out to be a problem for them at some point in the future they already have as much they can use against that person. All the better if it goes back to a time before they became politically active and/or cared about their privacy (because they still thought "hur hur, who cares if the government knows what I had for tea last night").
*Those* people are more likely to be a problem for governments- i.e. the people in government and the institution itself, not those they "serve"- rather than some alienated sociopath who stabs a few civilians to death then gets locked up.
Whether such information gathering is the original intent or not, if it exists it *will* get used because it can be- that's the nature of information available to those in power. If necessary, this use will be justified on spurious grounds.
(#) Funny how they keep pushing to invade our privacy further and further with blanket surveillance to protect us from these baddies... yet it turns out whenever there's an attack that they already knew about the perpetrators, but didn't have the resources to keep tabs on them.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
