Cloud storage

Also today this has been happening.

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows them to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

Probably the worst aspect of the revelation that NSA has been systematically collecting everyone's telephone and internet communications is that, for most people, it's probably not much of a revelation at all.

As usual, the powerful and their sycophants will make this absurd argument. 

Someone should introduce Senator Feinstein to Senators Udall and Wyden because she just went on TV to explain that all of this is well known and that nobody in the government objects.It's all very above board, legal and by the book.

Oh, and she believes we need a leak investigation right away because we are living in "a culture of leaks" and it must be stopped.

But that is stupid and transparently evil. The real tragedy is that most folks will yawn.  The fashionable reaction will involve smug sighing about an "angry left" overreacting again.  But mostly, people will ignore this, take comfort in the fact that they "have nothing to hide" and then flip on whatever internet enabled device has selected some personalized entertainment for them.

Rest assured, though, not very much of this will be happening.

How is it tolerated by the American people?

That's the most pressing question. The civic negligence required to reach this point is the thing that most disappoints me about my fellow citizens, who ought to throw out every last member of Congress complicit in the metastasizing surveillance state. I am serious. Look up your representative. In a letter or phone call, demand they take a stand against this, on penalty of you voting against them in a primary or general.

That's how change happens when the president who promised it turns out to have lied.

Just seeing it written that desperately underscores the general impotence. And I'm sure the architects of the surveillance state understand that.