What if all the data the government is collecting gets stolen or is sold?

[DetlefK]

What if the NSA gets hacked and a foreign government or a criminal organization get all those email- and phone-records?
"If you are innocent, then you have nothing to hide."
What if this data falls into the hands of someone who WANTS to hurt innocents?
What if this data falls into the hands of someone who has no scruples profiting from it?

"Ever told someone a secret that you would pay money to stay secret? GOOD NEWS! Pay up and I won't spill the beans!"
"We have heard you are in trouble. GOOD NEWS! Our products and services are just right for you!"

Or the mandatory DNA-sampling if you get arrested:
Can the government sell this data to a biotech- or insurance-company? What if a crony merely steals it?
What if that biotech-company discovers and patents something based on your genome?
What if that insurance-company increases your insurance-premium because your genome gives you a chance for getting dental problems or mental-health problems or cardiac problems or breast-cancer or severe overweight or diabetes or ...

Prepare for a "Brave New World" in which you are judged by companies according to your genes.







These theories are outlandish and improbable. Absolutely.
But can you say in all honesty "This won't happen 10 or 20 years from now." ?

[Lint Head]

1. To money and power we are nothing but mechanical meat.

[1-Old-Man]

2. Immagine that there might be another Bradley Manning working in the NSA.

[LiberalEsto]

3. What if the data goes to marketing companies and corporations

to help them target you even more than they already do?

[treestar]

6. that's where it came from

They already had the chance to target commercially. In fact, they are about to dump it when the government goes in to get it before the private corporations dump it.

[LiberalEsto]

9. So I guess the way to beat them is to spread LOTS of disinformation

If everyone made vast quantities of prank phone calls, and posted all sorts of nonsense in every corner of the internet, we could keep them so busy and confused that their snooping little heads would spin.

[many a good man]

13. Private companies already have more data on you than the NSA

All your online interactions are captured by a private corporation somewhere. They all outsource with the huge marketing database companies like Acxiom and share information to ensure your data is accurate in regards to market segmentation, identity resolution, change of address, de-duplication, and enriched with additional demographic information. Your credit card company outsources the data to all your transaction information, phone company all your calls, and internet provider all your emails and website visits. Its mashed with publicly available records from the post office, motor vehicle, state property tax divisions, etc.

New open source technology like MapReduce and Hadoop enable analysis of zettabytes of data at very low cost. Companies are more than happy to monetize the data they collect on you. The NSA doesn't need to spy on you because private corporations already have more data on you than they can dream of.

[treestar]

14. I remember filling out some online stuff

where to confirm identity, they ask a series of about six multiple choice questions, like which of the addresses is associated with you, etc. It was spooky, because they knew things about my past addresses and my relatives, and used that so that I could answer the questions and prove it was me.

So I have no doubt you are right. And the corporations are probably using them a lot more efficiently for marketing purposes than the NSA will ever be able to use it to find terrorist plots.

[russspeakeasy]

4. "If" it's sold ?

[treestar]

5. It was already in the hands of the big corporations that collected it

It's kind of funny because in the sense that people distrust the corporations, it might be better for the government to have it - the corporations only use it for profit. It is not worth it to them beyond 90 days, so they dump it, and it is the government that keeps it by subpoenaing it every 90 days.

[RC]

7. By the time some hacker gets all that data sorted out, we all be be long dead and buried,

under all the data yet to be collected.

[leftyohiolib]

8. what if what if what if ....

what if none of that happens

[DetlefK]

10. Then we have reached 0% corruption, 0% malice and a 100% impenetrable IT-security.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. When there is possible money to be made, someone will always try to do so

You may notice that some will rob highly secured banks in armed attacks that risk their own lives. So hard to buy your theory that all of this valuable content would never be pillaged by the holy, monk like folks in the government, like Rove or Cheney, they'd never rifle though emails for intellectual property to steal, never!

[rhett o rick]

12. LOL. Let me see if I got this straight. "Dont worry if the govment gets all your personal data in a

database because it might not get stolen." Is that your argument? Things might not go to hell so dont worry.