We can change that through technology. I believe Lessig was right when he said "code is law" [1]. That goes for NSA, too -meaning they can do whatever they want as long as they can do it through code. If you read that slowly, you realize that:
1) NSA can do a whole lot right now, regardless of the law, because Internet security is so broken
2) If we do fix Internet security, then they will be very limited - again, regardless of the law.
Like take end to end security for example. A judge can request a company to give up the key even to all of their users data - like they did with Lavabit. But if it was true end to end security, with the key on the client's side, there's nothing they could've requested from the company, making FBI and NSA much more limited in the data they can gather. They would basically have to try and tap only the important targets - you know, like they used to.
We will fix Internet security, and I'm starting to see a trend already of high quality secure apps that the public could use (compared to before when most were just unusable by normal people), and we're going to see more of it.
1) NSA can do a whole lot right now, regardless of the law, because Internet security is so broken
2) If we do fix Internet security, then they will be very limited - again, regardless of the law.
Like take end to end security for example. A judge can request a company to give up the key even to all of their users data - like they did with Lavabit. But if it was true end to end security, with the key on the client's side, there's nothing they could've requested from the company, making FBI and NSA much more limited in the data they can gather. They would basically have to try and tap only the important targets - you know, like they used to.
We will fix Internet security, and I'm starting to see a trend already of high quality secure apps that the public could use (compared to before when most were just unusable by normal people), and we're going to see more of it.
[1] - http://harvardmagazine.com/2000/01/code-is-law-html