Maggie's Farm

There are a number of bottlenecks or junctions in our phone and internet systems. Things like satellite links, communication towers etc. All of these are accessed by the NSA and have been since they existed. probably 95% of all phone and internet communications are monitored by super computers and can be searched in real time for key words by the sending or receiving individual and in other ways. All of the metadata is scooped up and collected/saved. The actual voice or digital content is not saved unless it is actively selected by the computers but any and all of it could be with the only limit being storage space and the manpower to actually listen to it or read it. The NSA does make an effort to not record or listen in on communications inside the U.S. but everything leaving the U.S. is fair game. But even those calls and communications wholly within the U.S. are picked up by the computer system and could be monitored or collected by humans at any time with ease. The NSA has been doing this since they were created but it is only as the system became more and more high tech that it came to include everything. If you send an email it will go through the NSA computer. If you call anyone more than a mile or two away it will likely go through the NSA computer. That the NSA "doesn't" listen into your phone call or email is technically true only in that the computer processes it but it is extremely unlikely a human will hear it or read it.

Is this good or bad? I am honestly not sure. I can tell you this, that the Russians and other countries do this as well. And I mean listen to "your" conversations and emails not just :theirs". So the question is do you want to allow Russia to listen to everything and forbid the U.S.? Will that put us at risk and give the Russians a tactical advantage?