You think Hippa will safeguard your personal info from the NSA?

[TheMadMonk]

33. Pehaps because they care about WHO I know.

Hypothetically let's say the government is interested in a rabble rouser with strange ideas about equality and fairness. Let's for the sake of argument call him Martin.

Now the government has no actual dirt on Martin, but thanks to total information awareness the govt. knows where he has his morning coffee, where he takes lunch, his preferred bookshop, what bus he catches to work, etc. Every tiny and seemingly pointless detail of his movement through day to day life.

However, his barista has gambling debts, his favourite waitress is sleeping with her boss's husband, the kid in the bookshop collects child porn, and his bus driver goes to cock-fights on the weekend. Right there are four people who can be blackmailed into reporting anything they see Martin doing, or hear him say. And the kid in the bookshop has the gold. He's the one who's heard the story of Martin's chronically ill second cousin Suzy.

Now over the next few weeks everything which can possibly go wrong for Suzy goes wrong: Her records are lost; Her insurance terminated, reinstated and terminated again; Her primary care physician is put under investigation for Medicare fraud; things got wrong and just keep on going wronger.

And then there is a knock on the door, and the following day Martin announces he is getting out of politics, and instead of a dead martyr for the cause to rally around, there is a very visible "Uncle Tom" telling black people how wonderful it is that white people condescend to condescend to them.