I think most people feel powerless, either financially or technically.
Many people I know think what the NSA is doing is completely wrong, but they have problems logging into facebook and getting their email to work, they just feel powerless because they don't understand the technology behind the world they live in.
How can they stand up to something they can't even begin to comprehend?
The NSA could literally do anything they wanted to most people and they wouldn't even know about it.
And then we have a much smaller group of people in the tech industry (most people who frequent Hacker News), who know what the NSA is doing is horribly horribly wrong, but are afraid of being destroyed financially, socially, and professionally for standing up to them.
It feels like swimming up a waterfall. The NSA can so easily ruin lives by planting illegal material on your computer, then tip off the local cops who get a search warrant, then they seize your computer and find the illegal material on your computer.
And you life is ruined.
I mean, they are so powerful technologically speaking, they can ruin lives without so much as lifting a finger.
For many people, law enforcement doesn't even have to bother planting illegal material. They only have to twist the description of a target's behavior until it fits the requirements for violating a law (e.g. CFAA[1]), or catch the target committing any of the other federal crimes[2] he/she unknowingly commits on a regular basis.
1. Couldn't a random hacker do that? Or a hacker affiliated with a private institution (e.g. News of the World)?
2. There's this terrible virus going around that locks you out of your PC or server meaning you lose all your data unless you pay the ransom of $500 in bitcoins. With this new trend in un-regulated crypto-currency, this scam cannot be stopped through the traditional means - financial/bank account freezes. Does this give any privacy proponents pause for thought? Also there's the old hack your webcam and blackmail you which has led people to commit suicide. Again, malicious hackers, not a gov't conspiracy There's actually a reason we've given power to police/enforcers in every aspect of life: because criminals are ruthless and prey on the innocent and gullible - physically, financially, and of course, now cyber-ly.
3. You've actually started to glean the important point in how we deal with cyber evidence as a society. Nobody's life has ever been ruined by getting put into an internal watch-list. But when list become enforceable (like the No-Fly list, or the McCarthy-era communist list) then lives are ruined. This is similar to your point about planting evidence: when the local police and prosecutor get brought into it, lives are at stake. I again wonder though why a spy agency would need to hack evidence onto your computer when they could simply plant in your house; that has happend thousands of times by dirty street cops, while your example - being carried out by a gov't agency - has never been reported to happen even once.
Many people I know think what the NSA is doing is completely wrong, but they have problems logging into facebook and getting their email to work, they just feel powerless because they don't understand the technology behind the world they live in.
How can they stand up to something they can't even begin to comprehend?
The NSA could literally do anything they wanted to most people and they wouldn't even know about it.
And then we have a much smaller group of people in the tech industry (most people who frequent Hacker News), who know what the NSA is doing is horribly horribly wrong, but are afraid of being destroyed financially, socially, and professionally for standing up to them.
It feels like swimming up a waterfall. The NSA can so easily ruin lives by planting illegal material on your computer, then tip off the local cops who get a search warrant, then they seize your computer and find the illegal material on your computer.
And you life is ruined.
I mean, they are so powerful technologically speaking, they can ruin lives without so much as lifting a finger.
It's very scary and very real.