Would you consider it surveillance, if you came home and found all of your files had been opened and read?
I would. That is part of Wave's problem also. "Conditional" sercurity is what the govt seeks and as human history has made clear, sensitive info will, without a doubt, be mishandled, mis-shared and misused by unauthorized employees.
Perhaps I misunderstood your statement. Why isn't any intrusion into computers electronic surveillance, whether those computers are on, off, or the info is stored "at rest" in "the cloud,"
or on paper, PDF, CD, flash drives, etc.?
My sources say all cloud data is checked regularly by various governments, not all of them ours and not all of them known.
What if you had left a CD containing truly sensitive info on your desk. You come home to find the disk is now in your computer and someone has turned your computer on and copied your disk. Would that not be surveillance of data at rest? In my definition, it definitely would be.
I would not be pleased to learn if I had stored nude pictures of say, my wife or girlfriend, that they had been copied and were posted all over the keyboards and screens of NSA employees. "Hey, she's real hot. When is he going to take more fotos like this?"
Already there are many reports in the media and a few narrative cases showing the NSA is illegally sharing their illegally-gotten gains with the DEA, FBI, DIA, etc. and state and local law enforcement agencies.
IMO, it amounts to illegal spying on American citizens who may be doing nothing more secret than having an affair or trying to keep their cigarette smoking hidden from their families.
Is that the business of government? Does that keep us safer, or is it merely intrusion, to be accepted by we, the citizens of the United States of Surveillance?
What would you consider a government agency's unauthorized examination of "data at rest?" I can think of no other word than 'surveillance.'
Can you set me on the right path to understanding your statement?
Blue
