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0 pointsArgorak11y ago0 comments

There was a lawsuit, she's simply talking about what was in the investigative files.

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7 comments · 1 top-level

crimsoneer11y ago· 6 in thread

Yeah, I just suspect there's more to it than what's stated in the article. Surveilling people is really expensive, I doubt they did it just because he'd written an essay with specific words in it.

ArgorakOP11y ago

The thing is that he didn't do much more than writing the article. He's a sociologist and as such writes about topics that do not necessarily match his opinions. The files didn't give many more reasons beyond that, the prosecution was widely criticised as excessive. Given the courtness, the quote is well picked.

The point is that just putting those words our seems to be enough for full surveillance.

chiph11y ago

> Surveilling people is really expensive,

Not any more. Now it's just a matter of looking them up in a search engine. Whether public (Google) or secret government (ICREACH).

bigiain11y ago

Yeah, there's no way they'd spend the billions of dollars it's cost to surveil everybody "just in case", then use stupid keyword searches to target individuals...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/07/24/blueprint...

PavlovsCat11y ago

Yeah, it's expensive. But it's the tax payers that pay for it, not the people who sell the equipment or training, nor the people who are payed by the tax payer to use said equipment and training against them.

izacus11y ago

Even though Snowden leaks pretty much show that?

mpyne11y ago

They don't "pretty much show active surveillance on individuals". Even the NSA doesn't have the human intelligence analyst bandwidth for that. The Snowden leaks show pretty expansive collection of data that could be examined by analysts, along with tools to make the analysis of that data even easier, but unless I've missed one there's nothing in the leaks demonstrating "automated SWATting of a house".

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