[Wikimedia-l] PRISM

[Anthony]

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 6:21 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:

> Correct. If Osama Bin Laden had been editing Wikipedia, before his death
> of course, through some account in Pakistan, it would have been rather
> reasonable to respond favorable to a request for information. But "plenty
> of reason to think the government would be interested in Wikipedia access
> logs" No, massive amounts of information about people doing ordinary
> things like editing articles about Homer Simpson is kind of the opposite
> of intelligence; it IS the haystack, not the needle.
>

And yet, PRISM is exactly about collecting the full haystack.  And it makes
sense, if you ignore the privacy implications:  Collect everything in your
multi-zetabyte storage device, even if you aren't going to analyze it right
away.

And yeah, editing articles about Homer Simpson is one thing.  Editing
articles about the Tea Party, on the other hand...

Fred, you used to be a lawyer.  How would you like the government to have
access to all the Wikipedia searches (and google searches which linked to
Wikipedia) done from your office?  Might that not compromise your ability
to defend alleged criminals?