What's behind the curtain?

Wired Magazine: "AT&T provided NSA eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company."

Comments

[Mobile Phones]

I am by no means an alarmist, but it is worth recognizing every once in a while that the conversion to digital information that has taken place over the past fifty years doesn’t just make life easier for the everyday person; it also makes life easier for those who want to do harm to people. I don’t necessarily mean the government, but in the broader sense anyone who wants to do harm. It actually makes sense if you think it through. The whole point of digital technology -- whether it be internet access, or cell phone calls/ messages, or cable television -- is to bundle data more effectively and transmit it more efficiently. Obviously that makes life good for the average human. He or she has access to more web pages at a faster rate, more cable channels. But compressing more information, and making it more easily available also creates the potential for rampant abuse at a rate that is faster and more easily available.