Cloud software is fine as long as you don't need to trust it. I use Google Calendar, for example, because it's convenient and I really don't care if the NSA knows when my next dentist appointment is.
Remember that video that was posted of a Lawyer given a talk to law students about never speaking to policemen? Remember how innocent things can be completely twisted and used against you?
Yeah, I'd worry about the NSA snooping in my calendar.
Unless the government puts explicit restrictions (not secret restrictions!) on how their resources (not just stored data!) can be used and actively punishes those using it improperly, then it should be assumed that all the resources at the NSA's disposal will be used for the convenience of the rest of the government.
sharing your calendar can be twisted against you.
not sharing your calendar can also be twisted against you ("you don't seem to be sharing your calendar like most of your fellow citizens, what are you hiding?")
see: mccarthyism.
Perhaps we should exercise our little grey cells more. Granted for a busy sales man or something that's impractical, but Im sure we could generally commit more exclusively to memory..
I posted this before, but to repeat... I think the legacy here is that we move more and more as a matter of habit or routine to a more secure way of living. No, we cant ever fully insulate ourselves from the NSA, but I think more and more of us will commit less to the internet, choose HTTPS via automatic extensions, use more secure software as a default, self censor, and so on.
And how will they be treated? It seems: poorly.
FWIW, I'm not even from or in the US of A, but I'm worried about my government doing something exactly like that considering how much it's cooperated with the NSA directly in the past and present.
BTW it's a major trope in spy movies. Literally dentist appointment in "The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe" ("Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire").
(I say this from a position somewhere in-between: I was born in British Columbia, and my birth date is right on my birth certificate, but wrong on the public-health-plan card you also get issued at birth. I had a very strange time bootstrapping my first credit card...)
I also have my adoption papers, and I left the country I was born in when I was young (7 years). As far as the country I live in is concerned I'm my Father's last name, but have legitimate primary ID with my mother's pre marriage last name.
Always wanted to get my spy on and build up a second identity with that. Of course that's highly illegal, so itw only ever been a fun thought exercise :)