Given your last paragraph, part of me wonders if you forgot to attach the satire tag to this post. In all seriousness, you make some valid points, but it's not my secrets I'm worried about. Like you, I don't have anything worth hiding, and even if I did, the government wouldn't care enough about me to ferret it out.

However, consider the case of Martin Luther King, Jr. as an example. The FBI followed him and were gathering dirt on him, including extramarital affairs. Those affairs weren't illegal (although they were immoral), but yet one can imagine a situation where the FBI could use such dirt to influence him to act in a particular way. There's no evidence this happened, and it seems reasonable to suspect it never did, but I can't help but wonder if they might have tried this had MLK, Jr. lived longer. There are thousands of other cases where the government (or other nefarious agents) might use similar secrets to pressure politicians or other leaders to "throw the game" or to act in subtle ways that betray the causes they would otherwise be ardently fighting for.

The most hilarious part of this leak is the fact that the NSA could not stop the leak and Snowden made it to Hong Kong without problem.Its my understanding that he was staying in the Hong Kong Hotel under his own name. While Snowden was talking about being taken out by agents of the CIA based in the American embassy 15 minutes from his hotel, the DOJ was preparing charges in preparation for extradition.Now it seems Russia may be willing to provide shelter for Snowden.

Best buy used to ask for zip codes when you made a purchase. Cookies get placed when you visit a host of sites. Unless you have an encrypted system sending information to another encrypted system, you are already compromised.

If there is a lost relative who could be found by tracking cell phone pings, ping away. 

Well, all righty then!

Just so long as they don't find out about those two guys in Reno for chrissakes!

You know, most of us big he-men type don't worry about privacy - exhibitionism is something we pride ourselves on - I drink, I fall down, I get up. A geek worries about PGP - real men re-use the same password for 25 years.

So much as I play a worrier on this blog, in real life outside the innertubez I can't be bothered to actually change my life.

And this is part of where the worry sets in. People who would manipulate us know we're unlikely to change habits unless something really goes wrong. And they're great at changing just enough at each step to avoid us doing anything except grousing.

"As long as the First Amendment stands, we have nothing to worry about." Well, if I'm Muslim, I have a lot to worry about - which might as well be a law regarding religion - strip me, surveil me, examine all my friends, check all my bank deposits, God forbid I give to a mosque or Muslim organization, and if you find me in an airport, be sure and detain me. If I blog and say something heated on Facebook, you just might give me 15 years - more than someone who lies to Congress or destroys evidence or tortures someone or fires on civilians on purpose in Iraq. Forget about any right to free association. PS - guess you'll feel free to bomb any relatives I might have overseas, or those who share my religion, and it would be wrong for me to express outrage and sympathy, unlike those Christians who've been doing that missionary thing & worrying about persecutions in China & what not whenever a Christian is harmed around the world.

When government targets "black militants" or environmental advocates or those displeased with George Bush or Occupy Wall Street, & infiltrates their meetings, well that shuts down free speech. It's not unusual that the feds & local police will organize behind the scenes to pre-empt some of those "right to peacefull assemble" meetings or push them far away from where they can be heard (the veal pens during Bush's 2004 campaign, or preventing protesters from getting near BP-polluted beaches on the Gulf Coast). And if they're intercepting communications and otherwise gathering background info on people who might be concerned about being outed for being gay, for being liberal or having an affair (married or unmarried) in a conservative community, for being atheist in a Southern Baptist or Mormon town, for being anti-military in say Ft. Bragg, for being a Democrat when Karl Rove/Alberto Gonzales are doing their best to weed out Democrats in the hiring process...

So that's freedom of religion, freedom of speech, right to assemble peacefully. By grabbing reporters' records without their knowledge, that's certainly infringing on freedom of the press - first in the specific case, 2nd in making sure all reporters are intimidated and believe their sources will be compromised. The only info that will be safe to reveal will be info that's not controversial or pre-cleared with the government. That'll be some dull useless reading - White House briefings and  have already turned almost completely useless. Reports on any of our foreign wars, drones, Gitmo & dark sites, the CIA, NSA, new activity in Mexico, Africa, Pakistan... forget it. When Clapper, head of National Intelligence, lies to Congress, he knows he'll get away with it - if the press tries to find out the truth, they'll be prosecuted for trying to grab classified info - since almost everything is classified these days. And if 1 of those 4 million people with security clearances tries to speak up, they'll be convicted of leaking. And in the new framing of the DoJ, if the NY Times receives classified material, they're "soliciting" it so breaking the law. Yes, this is the Big Chill.

What's left? Oh, "petition the government for grievances".  Well the judiciary is ruling more and more that people don't have standing to petition the government or contest anything in court, unless they know for sure all the details of programs that are kept hush hush top secret. (And if they do know the details, oops, busted for leaking). Some of Gitmo captives weren't even allowed to see their own confessions to handle their defense. Al-Awlaki's father tried to sue to stop his son from being killed by a drone, but the courts wouldn't recognize his case. In Clapper v. Amnesty, SCOTUS ruled that Amnesty was just speculating about being tapped and couldn't prove it, so their changing their habits was unjustified and they have nothing to challenge in court. Just like Awlaki's father speculating his son might be killed, until he actually was (along with his grandson in a separate strike), and presumably then it becomes a national security issue in a don't look back, look forward transition.

So 5 for 5 (or 6 for 5 with presumed freedom of association). How does that First Amendment look for you now? If data privacy is the least of our problems, which ones of these are the biggest?

Looking at the disclosure as a design development, there is an aspect that isn't touched upon by the important consideration of individual rights under discussion; The structure of surveillance closely resembles the prison Jeremy Bentham wanted built in the late Eighteenth Century, the Panopticon. Bentham described it as:

"A building circular... The prisoners in their cells, occupying the circumference—The officers in the centre. By blinds and other contrivances, the Inspectors concealed... from the observation of the prisoners: hence the sentiment of a sort of omnipresence—The whole circuit reviewable with little, or... without any, change of place. One station in the inspection part affording the most perfect view of every cell."

I like JM Ross's description of the design:

In 1785 utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed architectural plans for the Panopticon, a prison Bentham described as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.” Its method was a circular grid of surveillance; the jailors housed in a central tower being provided a 360-degree view of the imprisoned. Prisoners would not be able to tell when a jailor was actually watching or not. The premise ran that under the possibility of total surveillance (you could be being observed at any moment of the waking day) the prisoners would self-regulate their behavior to conform to prison norms. The perverse genius of the Panopticon was that even the jailor existed within this grid of surveillance; he could be viewed at any time (without knowing) by a still higher authority within the central tower – so the circle was complete, the surveillance – and thus conformance to authority – total.

In 1811 the King refused to authorize the sale of land for the purpose and Bentham was left frustrated in his vision to build the Panopticon. But the concept endured – not just as a literal architecture for controlling physical subjects (there are many Panopticons that now bear Bentham’s stamp) – but as a metaphor for understanding the function of power in modern times. French philosopher Michel Foucault dedicated a whole section of his book Discipline and Punish to the significance of the Panopticon. His take was essentially this: The same mechanism at work in the Panopticon – making subjects totally visible to authority – leads to those subjects internalizing the norms of power. In Foucault’s words “…the major effect of the Panopticon; to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary” In short, under the possibility of total surveillance the inmate becomes self regulating.

In regards to the order by which police states have been created in the past, to have such a powerful design be adopted by society at large introduces a factor that suggests that past results are no guarantee of future performance.

There's a reason we have precedents. Especially when we're trying to constrain the power of government.

The boundary line doesn't matter until it matters. But if you don't complain until it matters, it's too late.

The Constitution says no searches without probable cause. Even if we don't care about telephony metadata searches, we SHOULD care about the government dispensing with a Constitutional check on its powers without asking or telling us.

I'm with you COMPLETELY, Michael!  I never gave a dam about the 4th amendment either but democrats seemed to be much squeamier when I was in office about netting everyone's phone calls and email and financial records and such. I mean, if you have nothing to hide you got nothing to hide so privacy is really nothing. We have these fancy computer programs using something called networked factor analysis that lets us know if your pattern of behavior might indicate that you are thinking of doing some terrorism. Then, we can stop you in your tracks. My hole attitude changed when Cheney told me that there were domestic terrorists too.

Good article!

W

It could be that there is scandal fatigue. I don't think the public at large feels that there was a cover- up in Benghazi despite the Congressional hearings.I doubt the public believes that the WH directed the IRS to target the Tea Party. The AP phone grab was reported after the DOJ admitted what they did.

Without an individual or group that they were directly harmed by the use of Prism or metadata searches, the outrage is largely about something theoretical. Nixon wanted the IRS to target individuals. The plumbers broke into Democratic HQ. 

The major problem is if everything is a scandal then when a real scandal comes along, they public lumps it in with the other stories and decide to wait until the full facts are available. The ACLU sued the government. Hopefully this, and other suits will allow SCOTUS to assess what types of data mining are Constitutional. If SCOTUS rules aspects of the program Unconstitutional. The public won't be outraged, the program will still be viewed as an attempt to protect the citizens of the US thwarted by the ACLU. Yes. 

Hopefułly, someone will get a poll on Congress to determine how many were briefed on the programs. Several members say that they were not briefed on the extent of the spying. The WH says Congress was briefed repeatedly.

Public outrage is also muted by Snowden when after checking into a Hong Kong hotel under his own name, he suggests that the CIA might kill him. His hotel registration does not suggest a high degree of fear for his life. Snowden's presence in the scenario does raise the question of how many contractors with GEDs have access to classified data.

In order for the public to be outraged, they are going to need a victim. Who had a conversation monitored and was pressured to do something they would not have done if not under pressure? I think the public already assumes their data is being viewed. There have been enough notices that consumers got from corporations acknowledging a breach of corporate servers. Hospital servers have been reached with hackers accessing private health data. The public did not panic.  

The public is waiting to see evidence of a person actually harmed by the surveillance. Greenwald may have that evidence in future releases.