Here is a link to the Complaint filed by the ACLU against the DOJ, FBI, DHS, CBP, CIS and ICE, over the failure by these agencies to release requested documents under the FOIA on the social media surveillance of both US citizens and non-US citizens:
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/1._complaint_for_injunctive_relief_1.17.19.pdf
The ACLU complaint was filed in the US District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco-Oakland Division, on January 17, 2019. A case management conference is scheduled for June 12, 2019.
I don’t see the term password used even once in that document.
While I won’t argue the government doesn’t surveil various people, I do disagree that the government has somehow obtained the passwords of thousands, (10’s of thousands, 100’s of thousands, millions?) of people and are individually searching their various social media accounts. The government has used key word “listening” programs and devices. Hell, they fly some device around in a plane and it (effectively) becomes a cell tower and cause all cellphone communications in the area to pass through that system. It has been used to locate criminals as well as to intercept actual phone calls.
But that has a limited capacity and range.
Did you know that at one time in not too distant history the Chinese caused at least 15% of the entire worlds internet traffic to flow through their routers, including us government traffic? And we didn’t realize it at the time?
The governments of the world have some capabilities beyond the belief of the average person. Even with that, one must understand that interception of internet traffic is only the beginning. How they sift through such huge amounts of data tends to limit what they can benefit from such intercepts. Then, even more arduous is when it comes down to personal review of any suspicious or targeted data. Somewhere along the line, people and their abilities to read and determine the worth of any given data does step in. That does tend to limit what the government can usefully collect.
I think an even scarier possibility is that if you use any voice activated controls on your computer (such as Siri from apple and Alexa from google), your phone or your computer is listening to you right now. While you realize Siri responds to “hey Siri” and asks you what you want in response, it is just as possible it is also listening for other keywords and taking some action, unknown to you, once it hears them. For all anybody knows, when your phone or computer hears you say Mexico, it may cause any conversation it hears to be recorded somewhere in the bowels of big brother.
Yep, while 1984 (the book) warned us of the government becoming “big brother”, the truth is, we are big brother and we intentionally and willingly created him ourselves. We willingly continue to allow ourselves the be surveilled all in the name of convenience.
