This needs to get struck down. It may be cliché to liken the US government to Big Brother, but I'm in the middle of reading 1984 for the first time, and the parallels are eerily similar.
Imagine a government that can see everything you do on your phones or on the internet (as discussed in linked article), that has 10s of thousands of drones[1] flying around the country the size of mosquitos, each equipped with advanced facial recognition software.[2] Oh yeah, and the government is willing to kill you, a US citizen, without trial if you say the wrong things.[3]
It may not be telescreens and memory holes, but Orwell was pretty close on the ubiquity of government eyes and the ruthlessness against those who dissent.
On the topic of dystopian literature, I feel like its actually more similar to Brave New World. People are simply content, ignorant or just don't think it affects them. They are so distracted by all the other stuff (mostly stuff that could affect them dramatically less) in our society that they let it happen. It is not like this information is completely hidden.
Try talking to your parents or friends that are "not into politics" about this stuff. People generally don't care, don't know, or don't think it will happen to them. The government wouldn't do something so bad, in their minds.
This is just my personal opinion and experiences on the subject.
This is an extremely short-sighted view of the situation.
The ramifications of this are huge. The law itself is an ex post facto law, which is explicitly not allowed by the Constitution, yet it passed, and granted immunity for past crimes which also violate the Constitution, and legalized a practice that by all means should also be illegal.
Not to mention the literal billions of dollars that have been spent on the program, agreements with telecom providers, equipment all over the US (world?) to split and route traffic to their special datacenters which also had to be built and maintained at incredible cost.
Simply put, there is so much investment in this from the powers that be, that it will take a strong argument from the people to demonstrate that we do not want this system to exist. That this should not be swept under the rug, or be made legal by some congressional hand waving.
Such a demonstration from the people needs to include everything that is wrong with this system in order to abolish something that has grown to this magnitude.
Likening it to fictional characters in books is about the weakest possible argument that should ever be used.
I would love to see the Supreme Court actually stand up for the Constitution and strike down this law. It is my opinion that, as of late, they seem to be more pro-government which is very chilling in and of itself.
Why would Supreme Court categorically rule out dragnet snooping by USG, when the worst that can happen is someone later suffers harm, at which point Supreme Court will see another case and develop rules to limit that specific harm?
I certainly agree with you that the world would be a better place if privacy were commonplace. I just think we should be realistic as to what we're up against.
Imagine a government that can see everything you do on your phones or on the internet (as discussed in linked article), that has 10s of thousands of drones[1] flying around the country the size of mosquitos, each equipped with advanced facial recognition software.[2] Oh yeah, and the government is willing to kill you, a US citizen, without trial if you say the wrong things.[3]
It may not be telescreens and memory holes, but Orwell was pretty close on the ubiquity of government eyes and the ruthlessness against those who dissent.
1. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57409759/drone-use-in...
2. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/135665-fbi-launches-1-bil...
3. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/24/killing...