Forum Overview :: Rants :: The NSA. Crime. A Serious Caltrops Thread

[quote name="Ice Cream Jonsey"]With access to what everyone has searched for, could the systems Snowden has outlined be applicable in solving popular crime? Definition of terms: <b>POPULAR CRIME</b>: I don't care about the person who stole a bicycle. I don't care about the person stealing my bicycle right now. The murder of JonBenet Ramsey, the Anthrax letters, the assassination of Kennedy - take your pick. Those are the crimes we care about. <b>SYSTEMS</b>: Dude started talking about all the stuff the NSA can do, but I don't care what the names of these programs are. Let's just assume that the location and numbers of all celluar calls are recorded. Let's assume all browser search history is recorded permanently, and every e-mail ever sent with a major e-mail provider has been stored somewhere. <b>SNOWDEN</b>: The guy who, if he goes to Ireland and starts punishing Irish tail, really IS a hero. With access to what everyone has said and searched for, could recent popular crime be solved? Is the guy who lives in Colorado Springs that searches for JonBenet Ramsey through Google three times a night someone that maybe we should investigate further? Is the guy searching for news on whatever active serial murderer is active right now living in the same area as the murders maybe be someone we tail? All of us left on this site know how computers and databases work. Could actual crimes be solved with this data? Could actual crimes get breakthroughs through this data? I submit that the ONLY problem is the sheer amount of data. Throw out all morality (I personally believe that everyone who knew about it or worked on it should see prison time.) -- does there exist the possibility of "knowing what happened" in situations where there was otherwise no chance? ICJ [/quote]