It’s like this: In 1775, British soldiers break down your door, ransack your house, and examine all of your papers. They write down who sent you letters with addresses and information about whom you communicated with, and how often. But they don’t take the actual content of your letters and papers. So would that be okay as long as they don’t actually read the body of your letters?
Of course it would not be okay. Our modern police and consumer advocates warn us about how much thieves can learn simply because newspapers pile up outside the door while we are on vacation. One could tell a tremendous amount about you from knowing whom you write to, who writes to you, how frequently, and what other papers you have, about what.
Even in the 1775 world of mere paper such metadata would have been a major invasion of privacy. The same police who remind us that thieves know when to break in to our houses by watching from the outside also argue in court that they can collect information about your communications without a warrant.
The NSA has been creating maps of American citizens' social networks
Why do they want to do that?
What could social networks be used for in the hands of government? Consider:
Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere
How will such capabilities be used now?
How They Hunt
Is it already too late?...
The NSA has been creating maps of American citizens' social networks
Why do they want to do that?
What could social networks be used for in the hands of government? Consider:
Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere
How will such capabilities be used now?
How They Hunt
Is it already too late?...
Could such data be used to suppress political opposition? /sarcasm alert
Minor pet peeve of mine on this subject. The information indicated is data, not metadata.
Metadata is data about data. An example would be that a phone number (data) is ten numeric characters (metadata).
Waiting for the ACLU to get involved. Waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting . . .