back to article Silicon Valley powers: Let mass spying die in May 2015 – it's bad for privacy (and business)

Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Yahoo! – and many, many others – have appealed to American politicians and g-men to rein in mass digital surveillance this May, and bring the intelligence community under some kind of effective oversight. "It has been nearly two years since the first news stories revealed the scope of the …

  1. Mark 85

    I'm just waiting to see which politico pops off with the time-chrerished response: "If you've got nothing hide, you've go nothing to fear" and then bring the renewal to the floor. If NSA wants to keep playing their game, they know who to push... Ah... we're almost back to the J. Edgar Hoover era again when it comes to manipulating politicians.

    1. fearnothing

      Bingo cards at the ready.

    2. Eddy Ito

      Ah... we're almost back to the J. Edgar Hoover era again when it comes to manipulating politicians.

      Almost? I'd swear we crossed that bridge with Stellar Wind quite a while ago.

  2. Graham Marsden
    Big Brother

    As your sub-heading suggests...

    ... once the "official" powers are under control, it will be time to bring the "unofficial" ones under proper scrutiny and stop them using get-outs like "if you keep using our service we can do what the hell we like with your data and there's nothing you can do to stop us"...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: As your sub-heading suggests...

      This "time" you speak of, has it been produced by Hollywood in a trilogy involving Wookies? I think the Dark Side won this one. Either way, at this point I will support any Alien uprising you can conjure up (fingers crossed).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    With all of the money and time spent building up a vast infrastructure around domestic and international spying, the people in charge are only grudgingly going to relinquish any of their power, Constitution be damned. What's likely to happen is that even more money will be lavished on these programs to install some toothless watchdogs who occasionally make vague statements about how much improved things are getting. Be a nice job for coasting into retirement, time to tune-up the resume.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      However the people in charge of funding the political campaigns of the people in charge of the people doing the spying are getting worried that the other 6Bn people on Earth are not going to be buying services from a US company if it is all going to the NSA.

      And that makes those people, the ones with $Bn to fund political campaigns, sad.

      1. Charles 9

        You assume these interests can't pressure the rest of the world to cooperate regardless. A little extortion perhaps...? There's also the chance these interests are worth more than Europe and therefore out monies the competition.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          You can pressure europe to spy on its own citizens and you can always rely on the Brits and the colonies to hand it all over to their Ft Meade masters. But you can't force Airbus to keep using your cloud service if they believe it is all being copied to the NSA and then on to Boeing.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If Silicon Valley really wants to do something about this...

    Then stop holding fundraisers for pols who won't vote to roll back these laws. Don't let pols come here for photo ops where they ratlle on about championing "jobs for the future". And put some of those personal fortunes to work tying the NSA and friends up in the courts.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Silicon Valley knowledge is power

    So when Google, Amazon, Facebookm Microsoft etc. play every trick in the book to track us and accumulate data about our every activity, that is just the good wholesome global market place in action??

    Knowledge is power, and the global powerhouses emerging out of Silico Value are busy gathering that knowledge, about us; and doing so more or less beyond the powers of any legl jurisiction.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Silicon Valley knowledge is power

      I'd rather have Google, Facebook, etc. know this than the government, considering that tech don't have law enforcement powers and that they essentially have their money taps turned off by failure in the marketplace. Once a government agency is created or empowered, killing it off again is like trying to kill cockroaches with a hatpin.

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