It's Not Just the Feds You Should Worry About

A new documentary reveals the frightening power held by all the companies that you access online every day:

Terms And Conditions May Apply examines the cost of so-called 'free' services and the continuing disappearance of online privacy. People may think they know what they give up when they click 'I Agree' on companies like Facebook and Google. They're wrong.

See also the Guardian's guide to the metadata you generate online, and an example of how it was used by the FBI in the Petraeus scandal. (Hint: using an anonymous email account won't hide your identity.)


Update: On the other hand, you shouldn't stop worrying about the feds, either. Al Gore declared that the NSA's collection of vast amounts of data is "not really the American way" in a telephone interview published in the Guardian today:

Unlike other leading Democrats and his former allies, Gore said he was not persuaded by the argument that the NSA surveillance had operated within the boundaries of the law.

"This in my view violates the constitution. The fourth amendment and the first amendment – and the fourth amendment language is crystal clear," he said. "It is not acceptable to have a secret interpretation of a law that goes far beyond any reasonable reading of either the law or the constitution and then classify as top secret what the actual law is."

Gore added: "This is not right." . . .

Gore has long had qualms about the expansion of the surveillance state in the digital age. He made those concerns public this year in his latest book, The Future: Six Drivers of Social Change, in which he warned: "Surveillance technologies now available – including the monitoring of virtually all digital information – have advanced to the point where much of the essential apparatus of a police state is already in place."

Within hours of the Guardian's first story about the NSA, the former vice-president tweeted: "In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?

He said on Friday: "Some of us thought that it was probably going on, but what we have learned since then makes it a cause for deep concern."

Also: Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, which has oversight of the Homeland Security Department, said after a briefing by intelligence officials that the revelations of NSA surveillance leaked to the media this past week are "just the tip of the iceberg," the program being much broader than hitherto suspected.