Come on, this shit storm is way out of proportion. If it hasn't occurred to you that using Facebook Chat is essentially like writing postcards, you're probably new to the internet game. There's a million secure alternatives out there, choose one. (Threema, Telegram, and Wickr are among the best.)
Most people - anyone clueless about computers, and only vaguely informed on the state of our intelligence community - they do not "know" what you imply. Because, we do not "know", and therefore we cannot prove it to them.
We are given bits, here and there. Who knows what bits are suppressed by which interpretations of this Patriot Act or that?
Such a laizze-faire attitude about such potential for warrantless, unbounded, infinitely intelligent surveillance (and control, which it implies) is inconsiderate of most people, to say the least. To say the most, it could be fatally reckless for too many of us.
"Come on": if a random link was crawled by a "threat intelligence agency" in an otherwise innocuous chat? That is outrageous, if true.
To be clear, I recognize "hints" that have been posted (as opposed to proof) suggesting that, in fact, something like Pastebin.com was crawled. And, for some reason, the link that was allegedly private allegedly ended up on Pastebin.
In any case, the authors of this thread were clearly not aware of such "sniffing" on their computers... to say the least.
Maybe completely innocuous, and maybe not.
But since we're on this Snowden/Citizenfour topic, let me at least be clear: I refuse to let the walls keep crumbling, if that's what we're really talking about. You can bet your ass that Benjamin Franklin was right: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
I refuse to consciously and explicitly grant free reign to "Big Brother" - and reduce this to a "catch me if you can" survival of the "most evasive" - just because, you know, "national security" knows whats best for us.
Who's security exactly? Who helped lobby to put whom in what directorship of what agency that deems it fit to keep this (slightly sensitive topic to Corporation X, Y, Z) confidential?
The more you let the surveillance state grow - whatever respectable, admirable, necessary ideals it may have - the fewer and weaker your "million secure alternatives" will become.
We must not reduce control of the future of our country to a cat and mouse game. We must be tigers ready to fight for what's right for everyone. And yes, everyone should decide this together - not just a few "intelligence analysts" (or worse, their bots) in a pretty little lab somewhere...
Thanks for your reply! I agree with most of the points you raise, but why do you think secure messaging services will become weaker and fewer as the surveillance state grows? Isn't the exact opposite to expect? I think the postcard analogy holds. In a few years time, encrypted messaging might be standard and everything else will be considered inadequate due to lack of security.
