Didn't mean to start anything. I just found it humorous that so many words were being tagged.

That communications is being monitored is not new news. The internet has opened the door to electronic conversations and virtual gatherings. The same rules of evidence should apply to information gleaned from these interactions as from their non-virtual counterparts. That solves one issue but not the more insidious one, that of political use of these interactions to subvert the democratic process. When your name starts appearing on lists because you disagree with a party's, or a government's actions or policy we are well down the slippery slope. People in power can't resist more power. Information is power so they must collect it and then use it to further their own power.

Just imagine if everyone on the internet used all the words in a single post at the same time. That would certainly make things interesting in Big Brother Central lol.

Eh, thing is, the government doesn't actually have the ability to process all the data all the time. Unless it goes through hubs on the internet they can monitor (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ), a lot of the data is lost and they can't retrieve it to scan and collect it.

Unless its on a webpage, most data gets passed through once, the internet is a protocol that doesn't store and buffer data typically, (actually that will be nearly impossible the entire worlds data capacity of every storage option out there is only 721,181 Peta Bytes ... the largest storage array in the world is only 120 Peta bytes.

By the end of this year we are supposed to hit a yearly internet consumption rate of approximately 650,000 Petabytes a year. Which means, even if you tried to store all of the data worldwide on every single installation of digital storage, you'd be only able to do it for about 14 months.

Dimitri

Dimitri,
If it goes out through the phone lines here in the US of A it is monitored. They have capture buffers at the main switch boxes across the US 0f A so no matter where it originates if it goes through the phone lines they have it. Internet, E-mail, and even phone conversations are all monitored for keywords and phrases.
What they don't want to think about is that it is easy to send a message without using those words. All you need is a codename and a date. Back in the early 70s I used to send out pages of four digit words, like:

4644 5912 4339 0162 ...etc.
The numbers were randomly generated by software that I wrote just to antagonize those who would try to decode them. I was never approached so either they found out early it was just random numbers or they didn't want to admit that there was a code they couldn't crack. If I was to do it again I would use an actual code that was crackable and list all their keywords in each message in differing orders.
What they are doing is unlawful and until it is brought to the public eye for what it is it will continue.
Spying on the general public was thought to be a terrible thing when it was done by Hitler, Stalin and the USSR. Now it is done for the safety of Americans - right, you take away our freedoms and rights to make us safe? Who will protect us from the watchers? Nobody! Just like the SS, KGB and the other organizations like them. (Homeland Security, TSA)

Not trying to be antagonistic but without interception and powers of search Law Enforcement and Govt would be powerless and we would either have mass catastrophe, anarchy or there just wouldn't be a system. Yes I agree the system; as we see it sucks, but without system us humans just wouldn't survive.

Radar ... these internet data scans are done without warrants or otherwise. They are "black operations" that are for non-Law Enforcement and typically done by agencies tasked with only spying on non-citizens, without a mandate inside the country they operate in.

This is groups like NSA, GCSB (New Zealand's version of the NSA), DSD (Australia's version) and CSEC (Canada's version) etc doing the interceptions with what some people consider overly board mandates which are not what these agencies were originally tasked to do.

Personally I don't care, even if I do end up on some sort of watch list, it would just be a gigantic waste of government resources to spy on me. At which point I'd probably consider it better then my tax dollars going into the arts or something stupid.

Dimitri

Yup and one of the programs they are trying to improve on is www.google.com/search?...04&bih=539

Yah but that is a Indian Government sponsored system to scan social sites.

Dimitri

one of the best egzamples of how you loose control once you post was to compare it to putting a poster up on the main street of town then turning your back for 30 minutes.
all sorts can happen it can be recopied so even if you take it down it is still there or over there and there and there......