I think The TPP is dead. So are attempts to

[grantcart]

59. Depends on how you want to use the word spying.

If you use the word to mean that contact records exist dormant in a data base where they could be retrieved to match a connection should you either place or make a call with a person of interest to see if you had other contacts with other persons of interest sufficient enough for investigators to pursue a warrant and capture your individual conversation then that would be spying.

For me spying is when the authorities are looking at you, investigating you, like when I was the only American in Ho Chi Minh City and they listened and taped every conversation and followed me around.

As one of the few people here who have Muslim relatives abroad with whom I exchange emails and phone calls with several times a day I have a greater chance that my data might get a hit on a data base search. Neither me nor my Muslim relatives care much for that because we have no contacts with throwaway phones and because they are much more concerned by the brutal violence that threatens from violent Jihadists.

But if you don't really care what a word means and if you think that having a phone record sit inactive is the same as the government listening to your phone call then you are free to join the vast expanse of people for whom distinctions and meanings have little meaning. Just the other day someone compared the NSA to Gestapo tactics, if you look around you can find it an rec that kind of nonsense as well.

I am an equal opportunity skewer. If I see any self congratulatory thread I will add a sardonic note. I think that DU is a powerful tool but it undermines the quality when we constantly pat ourselves on the back. If we were 1/10th as effective as we claim to be then Elizabeth Warren would be the next nominee, something that Manny and I do agree on 100%.