This is from May but I’m a bit behind in some of my reading. However it is worth every moment you’ll spend reading it.
A great deal of confusion has been created by the distinction between data and metadata, as though there were a difference and spying on metadata were less serious.
Illegal interception of the content of a message breaks your secrecy. Illegal interception of the metadata of a message breaks your anonymity. It isn’t less, it’s just different. Most of the time it isn’t less, it’s more.
In particular, the anonymity of reading is broken by the collection of metadata. It wasn’t the content of the newspaper Douglass was reading that was the problem – it was that he, a slave, dared to read it.
The president can apologise to people for the cancellation of their health insurance policies, but he cannot merely apologise to the people for the cancellation of the constitution. When you are president of the United States, you cannot apologise for not being on Frederick Douglass’s side.
Read the full article @ The Guardian.
