[ginush]

No it doesn't. Think about it. Some computer somewhere that is involved in bulk interception happens to record your browser connecting to, say, the Hacker News website, at various dates and times. This is stored in a dataset. No-one ever views these connection records. No-one ever writes a query for the dataset that returns these connection records. These connection records are automatically deleted after the retention period is up. Clearly, you are not being surveilled.

[DennisP]

So your claim is that this massive data collection, done at massive public expense, is not used at all? That seems unlikely. And given how good computers are at natural language processing these days, the data is more usable than ever.

[ginush]

Of course it is used. But unless you're a target of interest to intelligence analysts, the metadata generated by your online activities will be of no interest whatsoever. It won't even be looked at.

[DennisP]

The whole point of mass data collection is that you can check everyone to see if they should be targets of interest. And as societies get more totalitarian, what qualifies you to be a target becomes less and less dramatic.

Doing this is easy these days. You keep using phrases like "looked at" as if humans had to manually read through the records.

[sunaookami]

It leads to a Chilling Effect which has a huge negative impact on society.

[Larrikin]

Analytics are mining the data on here every second. Hacker News is a wildly popular site with higher ups in major Fortune 500 company posting anonymously and publicly here. Say anything bad about a major country's government (or even a minor country like Israel or Palestine) and all kinds of accounts you've never seen before start defending and attacking.

Everything you are saying is being actively monitored at this point on every major website even if you don't believe it's negatively affecting you yet

[ginush]

An analyst who is tasked with investigating, say, terrorist threats, is not going to be remotely interested in the browsing habits of random people who pose no threat whatsoever.

It's just pure paranoia. Yes, we know bulk interception is being done by intelligence agencies. No, they're not watching you. They have more important things to be getting on with.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

You can get on secret watchlists by means of guilt by association, automagically.

https://legalclarity.org/what-happens-if-you-are-on-a-watchl...

https://abcnews.go.com/US/terrorist-watch-list-works/story?i...

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-be-on-fbi-watch-list-...

That also applies to just visiting absolutely harmless websites which have been deemed VERBOTEN! to visit, for whichever reason(again, in secret).

Have fun trying flying then, or being debanked. Would you like to spanked?

[Larrikin]

Your are arguing from a green account that everyone should ignore all evidence contrary to what you are saying and just calling everyone paranoid for not pretending that evidence doesn't exist. The same government that is demanding all visitors to the United States show them all posts they have made online as a condition of entry. It is not an argument worth engaging with anymore.

[ginush]

That supports my point. If there really was a mass surveillance regime as the paranoics claim, there would be no need for the border control agents to ask for social media posts to be shown on entry. They would already have this information.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

No, it does not!

Doppelt genäht hält besser! https://dict.leo.org/german-english/Doppelt%20gen%C3%A4ht%20....

Also plausible deniability and/or competition/mistrust between different actors/agencies.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

R U sure/serious?

There is the concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragnet_(policing) and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiment_analysis

Combine that with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geofence_warrant and enjoy the possible hassle of being 'by-catch'.

[nhhvhy]

I thought about it, and now I’m even more convinced we are being surveilled.