This letter basically sets out "it's ok to snoop on our customers, just as long as we can report it".
Why aren't these companies, and people in general, demanding that operations like PRISM are terminated entirely? Why are people prepared to accept this sort of intrusion into their private lives at all?
If a peeping tom kept bothering me I would not accept his presence as long as he called me up before he started watching my house.
The major issue here isn't the way the government snoops on its citizens, it's that it happens at all.
It's never a bad idea taking small steps with such changes. Once transparency is in place, it'll be much easier to argue for stopping the practice altogether.
As a sidenote, think about how efficient copyright advocates have been with this strategy: slowly pushing through seemingly innocent changes.
In principal I agree, transparency is essential to political and social debate.
However, in this case we are not dealing with business law or economic policy and such. We're dealing with something insidious and socially toxic. To me the correct course is to outright object to mass personal surveillance from the outset. We should not allow tyranny to edge its way into our society, it should be stamped out and named to be the rotten cancer that it is.
Why aren't these companies, and people in general, demanding that operations like PRISM are terminated entirely? Why are people prepared to accept this sort of intrusion into their private lives at all?
If a peeping tom kept bothering me I would not accept his presence as long as he called me up before he started watching my house.
The major issue here isn't the way the government snoops on its citizens, it's that it happens at all.