People almost never read the Terms of Service to their cellphone plans or the various online services they use, like Facebook. So maybe it never occurred to many of them that they willingly gave all their information to multinational telecoms a long time ago. Still, this new definition of “secrecy” intrigues me, the one where all that “private” data is known only to the user, the telecom, and whatever international marketing conglomerates that want to pay for it. So the idea that governments couldn’t or shouldn’t see it seems so nave that I can’t even think of an adjective that properly conveys the sheer enormity of that navet.

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t obvious problems with the Patriot Act and the way the FISA courts seem to be operating, there are. The most glaring apparently being the complete lack of any opposing counsel, no “devil’s advocate” if you will, so that there’s nobody to appeal a ruling and therefore effectively no higher court of review.