Big Brother Finally Hits The News Cycle.

As we know from about a zillion blog posts and minor news stories scattered around the web since 1998 or so, Big Brother is tapping your web activity.  Lately we have had news that Big Brother is recording -everything- that we do on-line, from phone calls to Google searches.

From the main stream media we have heard muted mutterings of "yeah, they might be kinda listening sometimes." Should be front page and top of the hour on every outlet that every freakin' thing you do on-line gets recorded and archived -forever!- by American government agencies, but all we get are these little breadcrumbs.

So finally a -BRITISH- newspaper has been unable to ignore the stinking dung pile any longer, and has gone public.  Its all over Drudge.

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.
The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.
The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.
Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program.
In a statement, Google said: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data."

Perhaps a bit less so at the New York Slimes.

PRISM is the new search word my friends. And don't forget about CARNIVORE and all that other alphabet soup. CARNIVORE is so old they retired it in 2005.

Its official now. Big Brother knows what pr0n sites you visited in 2009. And 2003. And probably 1997 for that matter. They have the Great Mother of all keyword searchable databases with all this crap stuffed in a series of server farms someplace, probably a hundred acres of blade racks consuming the entire electrical output of a 1000 megawatt coal fired generating station. Enough waste heat to keep New York City warm in January.

Google server farm, now under NSA management.

Remember, this is just what we KNOW they're doing. The mind boggles at what they might be doing we don't know about. Enemies lists? Tapping political party phone calls? Given the IRS I think we can assume "YES!" on both those possibilities.

And hey Americans, the very best part? They're listening to you with YOUR money. They're listening to -me- with your money too, and I'm not even American. Isn't that special?

The Phantom