A common reaction to the news that the National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting most if not all of the electronic communications of American citizens: As long as if I’m not doing anything illegal, what’s the big deal?
Whistleblower Edward Snowden, 29-year old employee of Booz Allen, provided an answer to that question during his interview with Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald (emphasis ours):
“It’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody — even by a wrong call — and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision decision you’ve even made, ever friend you’ve discussed something with, and attack you on that basis to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.”
Some people (including BI’s Henry Blodget) are skeptical about Snowden’s stunning claims, but it should be noted that the alleged ability of the NSA to collect Internet traffic and crunch it to profile any American has been corroborated by several other reporters and whistleblowers.