But honestly, are you surprised? Are you really?
Government agencies have be building large datacenters, the EU loves data retention. There was no tin foil head required to see this.
I see this "are you so naive as to be surprised?" reaction in almost every thread about this. It's some kind of defense mechanism.
That's why I'm saying you are right to be upset.
I like the saying "being paranoid does not mean they are not after you". And being paranoid turned out to be realistic.
If you are British, as I am, I assume our government is shovelling off all our data to the US too.
As far as I am concerned, the internet is now pretty much like having our lives bugged. Might as well go the whole hog and have CCTV in all house holds. Heh, for all I know they access out webcams, etc. So, we might already be there.
I'm afraid the US has essentially infected the internet with a cancer what will only spread. Freedom, privacy, liberty, on the internet is officially gone. Sure we all "knew" about the likes of echelon for years, but it was officially dismissed as loony conspiracy talk. Now we know it basically true.
Sad thing is, this is under the watch of a Democrat, started by a Republican. Who is going to dare to reverse this?
No, it does not, that is the sick part. But as a non american it's not (or should not) be my business how the usa organizes itself and what kind of politics they make. And yet I'm sure they are infringing my rights.
Point is, I didn't vote for Obama. Nor is it my job to get rid of him.
It's not much of a leap to think that the NSA has backdoors into each of these OS's, too.
In fact, with all of the "scandals" right now, there's an even greater motivation to run this story.
So what's the motivation that's holding this story back?
Wasn't there a number of news stories in the past about the NSA collecting data from telecom companies and such. How is this time different?
EDIT: Found this, from May 2006: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-ns...