It surprises me that many people, and even officials say "let us know everything you say or do, if you have nothing to hide", when the very first thing the police tell you when they arrest you is:
"Anything you say, can and will be used against you".
And people are still not freaked out about having the government know everything they've ever said or done? I think the problem is most people just don't realize this or don't think about the type of abuses that this could create.
> And people are still not freaked out about having the government know everything they've ever said or done?
The part you left out of the quote was "used against you, in a court of law". Even if NSA should find info on people, it won't be admissible in a court of law against U.S. citizens essentially by definition, so from the POV of a random guy on the street it's a question of whether the nerd sitting at the NSA console is worse than the nerd sitting at the GMail ops room console.
FBI would probably be a bigger worry, but no one seems to care about them for years now.
Remember in Seven when Morgan Freeman is all like Hey Man we can't knock down this door we found out about this guy illegally and then Brad Pitt is all like Screw it and kicks down the door and they pay a homeless woman to say she saw someone suspicious...
Yes. Remember how that was portrayed in the move Seven far before Prism was a gleam in any NSA manager's eye? Cops have been able to do that since we've had cops. That makes transparency, rules of evidence, honest judges, and good defense attorneys important but we've already had this problem forever now.
"Anything you say, can and will be used against you".
And people are still not freaked out about having the government know everything they've ever said or done? I think the problem is most people just don't realize this or don't think about the type of abuses that this could create.