For the post linked in the headline, those seem like shocking accusations, but the kind I'm now accustomed to taking with a grain of salt. It seems perfectly plausible that the guy legitimately deserves a 6 year sentence for reasons unrelated to any of this.
As for the subject/headline, which I'm not sure is related to the particular post linked, it seems pretty simple. Tech companies would probably see PRISM with much more perspective than the internet's knee-jerk reaction. After all, these are companies who have that information at their finger tips 24/7, who can invade all kinds of privacy without any oversight or checks and balances and nobody would even know to get outraged. The media companies, particularly Google, are companies that regularly collect and profile that information anyway for the expressed purpose of profiling people in order to maximize their ability to manipulate the public. As far as tech leaders are concerned, the NSA is the first party to suggest doing something non-evil or selfish with all that data.
So for things like listening to phone conversations, there's still an argument and some outrage to be had. But I think for a lot of the companies, the leaders would have to sooner blow the whistle on themselves than the NSA. The whistle blowing would have to come from where it apparently did--an ideologue who has a fetish-ized view of the public sector as something evil and invasive even as the private sector pours over all the same information unimpeded for selfish ends.
> The media companies, particularly Google, are companies that regularly collect and profile that information anyway for the expressed purpose of profiling people in order to maximize their ability to manipulate the public. As far as tech leaders are concerned, the NSA is the first party to suggest doing something non-evil or selfish with all that data.
I think you have it reversed. The NSA is the only ones doing evil at this point. The private sector isn't in a position to use force in combination with the data.
> an ideologue who has a fetish-ized view of the public sector as something evil and invasive
You mean a public sector that would be deliberately violating the Constitution they swore to uphold? That would really be a fetish -- holding the public sector to the Constitution.
As for the subject/headline, which I'm not sure is related to the particular post linked, it seems pretty simple. Tech companies would probably see PRISM with much more perspective than the internet's knee-jerk reaction. After all, these are companies who have that information at their finger tips 24/7, who can invade all kinds of privacy without any oversight or checks and balances and nobody would even know to get outraged. The media companies, particularly Google, are companies that regularly collect and profile that information anyway for the expressed purpose of profiling people in order to maximize their ability to manipulate the public. As far as tech leaders are concerned, the NSA is the first party to suggest doing something non-evil or selfish with all that data.
So for things like listening to phone conversations, there's still an argument and some outrage to be had. But I think for a lot of the companies, the leaders would have to sooner blow the whistle on themselves than the NSA. The whistle blowing would have to come from where it apparently did--an ideologue who has a fetish-ized view of the public sector as something evil and invasive even as the private sector pours over all the same information unimpeded for selfish ends.