It seems that my posts about Tails may well have brought me to the attention of the NSA. Several news outlets are reporting on the NSA's use of a data slurping tool called XKeyScore. The scope and capabilities of this program are disputed (I suppose that's a necessary consequence of it being secret), but it's clearly designed to invade the privacy of non-American citizens.
"It's hard to tell how extensive this is. It's possible that anyone who clicked on this link -- with the embedded torproject.org URL above -- is currently being monitored by the NSA. It's possible that this only will happen to people who receive the link in e-mail, which will mean every Crypto-Gram subscriber in a couple of weeks."
Bruce Schneier
Whilst I'm not an American citizen, it's nice to know that the NSA should be interested in me :) Nonetheless, insofar as I am aware, I have not been accused of any crime and I believe that I am granted the right of privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Liberty's interpretation of Article 8 & see also the UK's 1998 legislation) so it's not entirely clear why my own government would not only condone this invasion of privacy but also to participate in the wholesale data collection effort spearheaded by my American cousins.
I can feel a strongly worded protest to me MP coming on!
Sources & References:
- Schneier On Security: NSA Targets the Privacy-Conscious for Surveillance
- BBC News (Technology): NSA 'targets' Tor dark web servers and users
- Liberty: Privacy
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