Grandmastersexsay :
You don't blame the government for wanting to spy on its citizens?
You and the rest of the idiots condoning this behavior are more to blame than any corporation.
As far as the governments not having the data, you must enjoy hitting yourself in the head with a hammer because I can't think of another reason for such stupidity. ......!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
AT&T didn't have to go along with this, neither did the other ISP's. They have attorneys.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order
Verizon could have just as easily implemented internal policies to prevent this type of court ruling from being able to gather data about its users.
You complain about your rights being taken away, but you are the one standing by the sidelines doing nothing about it. I work for a rather large company and we have intentionally setup logging of user data to only be stored long enough to create billing data, to not be included in system backups, and to be non survivable if the systems were to lose power.
This is a business risk that we take, yes we may lose a day of billing to our customers, but we cater to them and their privacy, not the government.
The government by itself wouldn't have the capability to monitor its own citizens without the acceptance of these mega corporations. I don't blame them for wanting the data, I blame the companies that have the data for not destroying it when it was legally safe for them to do so.
After the court orders have already been placed, it is too late them to change data retention policies, but they knew this from the beginning and chose to not protect users data.
Without operations like the two above, and im sure countless others by now the utah data center you refer to wouldn't have anything to store. It would be a giant empty database.
rwinches :
It's has nothing to do with privacy or expectations of any kind.
It is about having a fourth branch of government that is unbridled, unrestricted and is subject to no real oversight. That means we have no idea to whom they answer or follow with any surety.
With the data they have it can be used in many ways it can be mined for any number of attributes. So what if whomever is in control has an agenda that uses some specific criteria to determine undesirables or 'enemies' or people that need to be watched or further investigated. Think of the control or pressure or the fact that they might also capable of injecting data.
Already they can 'gag' you if you are under investigation. Already your local police are being federalized by Homeland Security, DEA, ICE, ATF.
Your rights are being taken away and you stand by and watch as if you are watching one the dozens of Police TV shows that have desensitized you to the point that you find it all just so entertaining.
If this is truly what you believe, then you know who they follow and answer to. Some will call it a conspiracy, some will call it truth, I call it the curse that is life on this earth. If you are religious at all, then reading the first verses of the good book will explain why this world is cursed as well as how to become saved from that curse.