The irony to me is that they have two of the worst offenders when it comes to mass surveillance advertised on the side of the page. Facebook and Google, despite their attempts to say they weren't aware of the NSA gaining access to their info, are probably just as much of a threat to privacy as the NSA total information awareness.

It goes like this: let the private companies run wild when it comes to privacy violations, and then gobble up all their data via national security letters, subpoenas, secret taps via NSA tech, and warrants for higher profile stuff and then only if desperate, and that is assuming an adversarial nature between the private sector and the government. In fact the C-levels are often directly approached and goaded into silently and secretly cooperating. (and if they refuse, ala Quest, they get targeted by the system)

Of course there is the matter that it is governments who will take the surveillance information and then act upon it, making them the slightly more evil evil in the room, but that does not negate the issue of private sector mass surveillance that is for sale to the highest bidder.

I've been one of those who has ranted about the dangers of the NSA since the late 90's, and now that it's a mainstream issue, it seems to have taken on a "oh yeah, the NSA is bad! stop that surveillance" kind of hipster social wave that lacks any kind of detailed nuance or explores the origins and destinations of this admittedly huge issue.

Yes, the surveillance is unconstitutional. So have been many of the other activities our American oligarchic powers have been engaged in over the past decade, including the assassination of American citizens without due process.

All of these things point to a much more deeply rooted issue than simply "surveillance", namely, that our fundamental governmental structure is in ruins as a result of a combination of corruption and apathy that has gutted the already precariously positioned checks and balances system.

Russ Tice has said he held in his hand the wiretap papers for a then hopeful senator from IL, who happens to now be in the Whitehouse. Are we really so naive as to think that Obama is clean coming from such a notoriously corrupt political arena? The intelligence agencies have been using the same techniques for ages, namely, bribery and threats. Russ Tice has also said he held in his hands the papers for judges who now sit on the SCOTUS, and FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has a source who was responsible for vetting potential judges (up to SCOTUS level), and according to her, he said that anytime a judge came up clean, he was immediately removed from the roster of potentials. The implication being that only controllable people are allowed.

The point is that all three branches of government are corrupt and no longer (if ever, don't mistake that phrase for golden day idealism) functioning as servants of the people and defenders of the constitution (I wonder what the legal importance of oaths really is these days, because I seem to be surrounded by oath-breakers(USMC combat vet)).

And of the three branches, it is the executive which lords it's power over the other two.

The really sad part is that it seems to be the private sector which lords power of the executive. This is the trail of breadcrumbs that truly concerned people need to start discussing, researching, and following. It's very difficult to do. It's hard to track down the global supranational corporate structure. I am still often referencing this paper: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf

Oh, and as far as technological surveillance goes, there are two main starting points. 1) open source EVERYTHING (especially our trackers ahem cellphones) 2) decentralize everything possible. That is how we gain control of our data back... but that's becoming more and more difficult.

Honestly, I think RMS was simply a man far ahead of his time, and the history books (if he isn't wiped from their pages) will refer to him as a visionary in a sea of overly pragmatic corporatists who failed to see the big picture.

I could go on quite a bit about this, but that's where I'll leave it for now.