NSA Director Paul Nakasone confirmed such purchases in his letter to Wyden, saying the data collected “may include information associated with electronic devices being used outside - and, in certain cases, inside - the United States.”

  • CazRaX@lemmy.world
    24·
    9 months ago

    That might be a loophole since they aren’t requesting it legally they are buying it like any other can.

    • TheMongoose@kbin.social
      24·
      9 months ago

      Yes. The answer to this isn’t to restrict what the NSA can do, the answer is to stop people’s privacy being a legally tradable commodity.

      • RandoCalrandian@kbin.social
        6·
        9 months ago

        What a load of shit.

        Not only have they been doing this, blatantly, since the 2000’s (remember PRISM?), but even credit report agencies were originally setup in the 80’s to do exact this, and exploit this exact loophole for the government.

        Did big scwary orange man bad do that, too?

      • CazRaX@lemmy.world
        43·
        9 months ago

        OMG, I don’t care about which boogyman you fear, it would have happened eventually regardless of color in the position. Money and power speaks much louder than political party.

  • trippingonthewire
    4·
    9 months ago

    I love how our tax dollars and inflated fed bucks go to this. We pay to get spied on. We’ve gone far beyond full circle.

        • capital@lemmy.world
          2·
          9 months ago

          This assumes the only source these companies collect from is your internet traffic. It’s not.

          And even if it was, VPNs don’t protect against fingerprinting.

          For the past few months I’ve been using kanary which is a service that searches for your information on hundreds of different data mining sources and submits deletion requests for you.

          I started with ~225 exposures and it’s gone down over time but I’m still sitting at ~50 exposures and it seems to have plateaued.

          This information was data like who I’d married and when, past and current addresses, family members, etc. None of which was gleaned from internet traffic.

          • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
            2·
            9 months ago

            Right, but you’re talking about two distinctly different things. The ISP doesn’t own the websites you visit. They only have a record of your traffic. The individual websites that you visit can bust your privacy through 3rd party cookies, browser fingerprinting, cross-site tracking, and a bunch of other methods created to circumvent the user security features built into the browser. Nobody shares that information back to the ISP for free. The real issues are that huge companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook have scripts running on millions of websites, so they can track you everywhere you go. But they’re still just single companies. The linchpin is that they then sell that information to Big Data brokers like Cambridge Analytica, and Informatica. Those companies combine literally everything you do online, everything you submit, all your history, all your data points, and build these fully accurate pictures of you. You need to take proactive measures to prevent this sort of data harvesting that go well beyond a VPN. But your ISP doesn’t have these systems in place. So unless the ISP is buying your profile from Big Data, and then selling it to the NSA, having a VPN is enough to thwart your ISP, and the issue identified in the article. You still have to take a bunch of other precautions to prevent the larger issue if you truly want any anonymity, and they’ll probably figure you out anyways.

  • makeasnek
    33·
    9 months ago

    Elections have consequences. Vote in generals and vote in primaries. Tell your reps (and potential reps) that you care about privacy.

    • BobGnarley@lemm.ee
      2·
      9 months ago

      All of these bills they pass about spying on you (“PATRIOT” act, PRISM, etc) all have pretty astounding bipartisan support. I mean they can’t agree on anything except when it comes to spying on us or wiping out whole societies of people that don’t look like we want them to look. They all fucking incredibly come together and agree on that. Every time.

    • N0x0n
      53·
      9 months ago

      Haha… If elections had any impact, it’s long time ago we would have seen any changes… ! Every year the same parade, with the illusion of choice between a turd or a piece of shit… Either way, they both come out of the same a Hole and reeks the same…

      Money = power ! Vote with your wallet instead… Stop buying unecessary things, just shut down your TV, radio, mobile… and open your mind to the REAL outside world, reconnect with your intuition, stop filling your body with deadly poison and stop being a brainless sheep (not saying you’re, it’s a figure of speech).

      Than maybe we will see some real changes :)

      • makeasnek
        21·
        9 months ago

        You can do both. You always get the same shitty options to vote for because most people don’t vote, and even fewer of them vote in primaries or participate in the political process in other ways.

        • BobGnarley@lemm.ee
          1·
          9 months ago

          How is voting for the lesser of two evils ever going to change that every year you will still get to vote between the “lesser” of two evils?

          • makeasnekEnglish
            21·
            9 months ago

            The reason you only get to vote for the “lesser of two evils” is because you don’t participate in primaries (assuming you are talking about the US system here). If MAGA can get a psycho like Trump to be their party nominee, you can get your kind of psycho nominated as well.

            Primaries are where you actually get a chance to express what kind of candidate you want. Hell, you can even run for office! Generals are where you hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils because otherwise it’s an automatic vote for the worst of the two evils.

            I agree voting seems pointless sometimes. But it’s still important. But it’s a lever of power you have access to and nobody can take it away from you no. And you can spend the 364 other days of the year impacting politics in other ways.

            • BobGnarley@lemm.ee
              1·
              9 months ago

              That worked out well for Florida that one time. But you’re missing what gets people nominated to the general primaries, boat loads of money. If you don’t have that, good luck getting anyone you want to win to run. Thoughts and prayers and wishing don’t fund a campaign, but money does.

            • queermunist she/her
              22·
              9 months ago

              The reason you only get to vote for the “lesser of two evils” is because you don’t participate in primaries (assuming you are talking about the US system here)

              Just popping in to remind you they destroyed the Iowa caucus to stop Bernie.

              • makeasnekEnglish
                2·
                9 months ago

                There was some shady stuff on behalf of the DNC but he legitimately lost. He didn’t get the votes. Because his voters didn’t vote in the primaries. A number of reforms have been made to the primary system since then, a bunch of the people who oversaw that primary got fired, and many states are now moving towards ranked choice voting which will eliminate the need for primaries entirely. If half the people who complain about how voting is useless actually participated in the primary process, our political landscape would look a lot different. I used to be one of those people, I get it, the whole damned thing is a bit of a racket, but it doesn’t change that voting takes 5 minutes and has a concrete impact on who runs the government.

                Edit: And that’s the presidential race. You can make much more of a difference, and the rules are much less wonky, in local and state elections. Hell, many of those positions are entirely uncontested.

                • queermunist she/her
                  23·
                  9 months ago

                  He “legitimately” lost after they handed Iowa to a nobody loser like Pete to render Iowa irrelevant in the future. You don’t really think Pete won, do you? Sure, they gave the appearance of “cleaning up” after Iowa, but that was always the plan! Now Iowa is done as a relevant caucus state.

                  I voted in Iowa. Getting my caucus vote made irrelevant showed me the Democratic Party is not a viable vehicle. They’ll literally throw out your votes if they don’t like it.