This is old news, obviously no one watched 4 Corners years ago – I think 15 – 20 yrs ago. I think it was about a program called Echelon. Remember the time a New Zealander broke into one of those unmanned “Pine Gap” sites (in NZ) and found mainframe computers downloading telecommunications data. Did we care then?
If all you show someone is a building with some equipment and say that they're monitoring you, it doesn't take much hand-waving to convince someone that these complex systems are only targeting certain people, etc.
Now, rather than just knowledge of a room with blinking lights, we have dumbed-down presentation slides that definitively show even the most computer-illterate person that their own personal data, not just the data of specific people, is being targeted, collected, stored, data-mined, etc.
It goes from a feeling of "it's probably legal, and targeting criminals" to "that's MY data they're stealing"
That's why people care. Moreover, it's just important that people DO care. If everyone adopted the same "why should we care now" attitude, then the powers that be have already won.
In a 15 - 20 years from now the whole lot will have been mostly forgotten and accepted as normal.
There and more important things in the politics such as gay marriage and immigration. Try watching CNN or Fox News and ignoring technical sites. The politicians want votes, they couldn't give a shit about your privacy.
Australia and the US have been keeping call records (number called and time) for well over 20 years. I don't see how any of this is new(s).
Pine Gap is in Australia not New Zealand, not that anyone really cares. :)
And for the tedious people that want sources; Look up how General Patreus got busted with his gmail. Look up the Tampa incident and see how Australia listened into the telephone calls between the boat and Norway(or some such country). There are loads of incidents that spell this shit out but I need sleep and most people would rather watch a speech from Obama/Bush/Palin/Trump than learn what their government is really doing.
I don't think so. People just have to want it as badly and fight for it.
In the age of social media, we do the public outrage thing a lot better these days, too.
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s103059.htm
Edit: pulled out a quote:
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The existence of the Echelon network was only confirmed a few weeks ago when US National Security Agency documents were declassified. Essentially it's a surveillance network capable of intercepting any telephone call, fax or e-mail made on earth. Echelon is run by the US National Security Agency using satellites and ground bases in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. It can sift through a million electronic messages every half hour.
(Telstra was government-owned until it was privatised from 1997-2000, and as such has a monopoly on most of the phone lines; the government sets the wholesale rates at which the lines are leased to other companies. Optus ran a bunch of their own cables, but the coverage isn't nearly as extensive.)
It takes a lot to shake Aussies out of the "she'll be right" mentality, and we don't have a Fourth Amendment to be violated like the US does.
I also fear that the aware, technically literate people here won't attempt to move Parliament House on the issue, they'll just resort to stronger encryption.
edit:grammar
Just explaining, only when they are interested to hear, and not giving theory but the real-life examples is the only sensible advice. Of course, you have to do your homework first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ribbon_Online_Free_Speech_...
This should bite them though when trying to buy foreign firms, cable links etc. No rational and influential country would let them do it after these leaks.
