US Senator says wireless carriers are helping Trump build 'surveillance state'

But like... haven't they been doing this for like... ever? There was an article on hn around a year or two ago about this. Mostly Snowden brought more light on this. I think the article mentioned bell south since the 50s or 60s.

So I get that a lot of people don't like trump, but don't give him credit for everything. Besides, wasn't it Obama that still authorized the whole surveillance issues Snowden sent the world memos about?

> Section 215 of the Patriot Act will expire at the end of this year unless the Senate votes to re-authorize it.

> "As sure as night follows day, the Senate will wait until very last minute, when you all have your Christmas trees up," he said. "I am goign to push very hard to see if we can put a stake in this program and kill it once and for all."

> But to do that, Wyden said, he needs citizens to write, email and call their senators and ask them to not renew Section 215.

Will citizens do something about it? I don't think so but we'll see. I really hope to be proven wrong.

The sale of location data, and the utter insecurity of APIs (eg, no enforcement of consent requirements, simply passing the paper trail obligation them through several layers of corporate agreement) really aught to be considered a national security issue at this point.

With enough money, an organization can monitor the movements of political opponents. Not just the politician, but their entire staff. This can fuel further vectors of attack in turn.

Obvously this trend isn't unique to Trump, but if politicization is what gets people to pay attention to privacy issues, then go ahead.

The surveillance state has existed for a long time...

The telecom companies have been semi-nationalized since 2001. This isn't new to Trump. The one company that tried to fight getting completely absorbed into the national security apparatus (Qwest/Joseph Nacchio) doesn't exist anymore. They are all part of the state now.