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by pg314 3480 days ago
> The government simply can't process all the data they collect.

They don't need to. They can focus their attention on high value targets. You and I might be low value targets and safe from surveillance (for now), but that doesn't mean the surveillance of high value targets doesn't affect us. As a thought experiment, imagine a world where an unscrupulous president uses the NSA to snoop on the opposition...

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Now imagine an unscrupulous NSA Director mining through years of accumulated data to retroactively snoop on US Presidential candidates' past behavior...

Heck, why stop at the top? I'm sure digging up dirt on current Senators and Congressional representatives would be useful too.

Didn't that already happen back in the 70s??