General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How the NSA is still harvesting your online data - 1 stream alone processed one trillion records [View all]KoKo
(84,711 posts)Say you are a small US Company that does work with Foreign Companies. You do SKYP's with clients because it's cheaper for small company than paying for the travel expenses to send someone over to do negotiations. You use e-mail, have a website that advertises your business and are on Linked In and also use Webinars to release information to selected clients.
There's no way you know if someone on a Government's "watch list" might decide to send you an inquiry on Linked In, or perhaps send an E-Mail to your website inquiring about a product or further information on the services you provide. Say you do a Webinar and invite people from around the world to sign up for it...or do a Skype with a small group of investors. If any of these people you interact with are on a "watch list" doesn't that mean that you by default are being monitored? And, what if if that information on you and your company could be shared by a Private Contractor monitoring your communications with a Competitor along with NSA or Security in another Government? Private Contractor can share information with whomever they wish along with collecting fees from Government Security interests.
This could be devastating for commerce and particularly Small Business because they can't afford to employ high tech security people to debug their systems constantly. And, if it's going on it would mean that Large Companies have a definite advantage these days (even though they are probably being monitored, too...even with all their supposed fancy debugging).
This has huge implications beyond spying on average citizens.