Hypothetically speaking

[Duer 157099]

Let's say "they" (the government, contractors, whoever) DID collect all this metadata on everyone. Who you called/emailed/texted and when.

So you're not worried. You've got nothing to hide.

So let me ask you this: is it OK if all that info somehow, sometime, got published on a website for all to see? I know you have nothing to hide, but are you OK with it being published? If not, why not?

Because once info is collected and stored and available to hackers or nearly a million IT/security guys, it will inevitably end up being published someday, somewhere.

Is that true?

Do you care?

Should anyone?

[graham4anything]

1. All landlines have that info already in a telephone book

only thing different are now phones aren't hooked to a wall.

A phone book of all cell phones would be the same as each city having a phone book

and remember, a phone book also had an address next to it

and yes, the 1% could have an unlisted number, but their numbers/addresses were already known by ATT and Ma Bell back then.

SO nothing is new.

and if one googles a person on the net, for $4.95 (but a free trial run) one can get all info they need

and if one goes to ancestry they can look up any individual whose name is put in and there is 100% success at finding all info

so, it's much ado about nothing. imho

[boston bean]

3. A phone book can tell you who a person called and how many times

and the length of the call and from where both parties are located when speaking?

Also, brush up a bit on ancestry.com will ya? They don't provide info on living persons. They release census data that is real old, every ten years, which the gov't makes public after the persons have died.

[snooper2]

2. all your datas is mine

Funny how this "story" is falling apart day after day after day, now we are to the "hypothetical/what if" stages

[Life Long Dem]

4. The government has my social security number too

The things they can do with that. what to do?... what to do?...

[ForeignandDomestic]

6. tssk

My..my..my.. how did we ever make it this far without Big Brother monitoring our every thought!

I'm starting to feel so warm and fuzzy knowing that the NSA is here to stay, give me more surveillence please!!!

[longship]

5. Who's publishing this on the Web for everybody to see?

I understand a person's outrage over the extent of the data gathering.

But nobody's publishing it all on a Web site and I don't know anybody making that claim.

I know that OP wrote "hypothetically". But I don't think this hypothetical situation helps move the issue forward because, to the contrary, the NSA is keeping the info swept under the veil of secrecy, so the big issue cannot be that the info is being published, because it's clearly not.

The issue is that it's being collected in the first place.

Sorry, although the hypothetical may be helpful to some, for me (and possibly only me) I see it misses the target.


Regardless, I have no problem kicking this thread because I may be missing something here.