[DanBC]

> Perhaps the innocent days of the early Internet are over, and we now always need to consider that Big Brother is watching.

You have always had to assume that your data is available to Big Brother.

[SilliMon]

No, in the past, only if you were a tin-foil hat wearing paranoid.

We expected our government to uphold the law, specifically the 4th Amendment, which protects us from unlawful searches.

[DanBC]

ECHELON was an open secret, with EU parliament reports. We knew how the 5 members avoided the legal problems of spying on their own citizens - A just hands B, C, D and E a list of names to spy on.

Here's a report from 2000 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/820758.stm)

Here's a report from 2001 (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/29/qanda.janeperro...)

Risk assessment has always been part of cryptography.