The US prefers to discredit people in the media as "terrorists" (or "gang members", etc) while throwing an unwinnable pile of charges at them to force a confession (aka "plea bargain"). This have the de facto result of keeping someone either in jail for a while or spending 100% of their time and money on defense.
Regardless of how it turns out, draconian probation requirements, pre-employment questions in the style of "have you been charged with a felony" and the arrest and/or criminal record are very effective at finishing the job of "disappearing" someone with unemployment and the social isolation that happens when someone's reputation is trashed. In many states, you can add long-term or permanent disenfranchisement.
The tactics everyone should be paying attention are closer to COINTELPRO, where key people are removed from potential positions of leadership or organization before they accumulate larger amounts of power. With a mass surveillance network and storage that lets you search through someone's past, parallel construction to remove someone on any kind of trumped up charge is easy.
Can you share an example of this happening to someone who works at a technology device manufacturer? Someone who was in a position to be aware of an NSL that they could spill the beans on?
That isn't the only industry that can be subject to a NSL. We are lucky to have any of the information at all; if you limit your search to very-specific categories, you risk finding areas that have less public data.
I would start here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/doe-v-holder
That case has nothing to do with discrediting someone as a terrorist or gang member, charging them with any crime, forcing a confession out of them, and really anything to do with criminal charges or jail time at all.
It may be a coincidence that he happened to both refuse to help the NSA as well as commit a crime, but "insider trading" as an officer of a company is pretty hazy, especially if you have the NSA informing you that they're going to tank your company's stock if you don't comply.
> rstephenson2 11 hours ago | parent
Wait... Randall Stephenson, is that you?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrajudicial_killing#United_S...
People want to reject the idea their government is immoral, so they do...
The charge is not that they would be disappeared and no one would miss them...
Cite your source.
I am skeptical by relying on the "six degrees of separation" theory... I literally know nobody who has ever known anyone (etc) that has been "disappeared".
Then I fail to see what your point it, the entire point of "someone would notice" would imply that would be a deterrent to prevent or give pause to the US Government disappearing someone. This would necessitate people caring.
Further, in order for many many people to notice like you said, a good portion of them must care enough to spread that info.. Unless you are thinking the only people that would be disappeared would be someone like Tim Cook, or other High Level person, no it more likely would be some unnamed programmer, or researcher.. not a CEO of a Fortune 100 company who is of no actual value to the US Government.
>>Cite your source.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/09/23/mis...
>>I literally know nobody who has ever known anyone (etc) that has been "disappeared".
Are you saying people do not disappear.. Government connection not with standing? All of the missing persons world wide are simply false?