Not long after the election President Trump made the
startling claim that he had been the victim of “illegal wiretapping” and he was
right, almost, sorta. While most of the media discounted his claims outright
false members of the Electronic Freedom Foundation and computer security
professionals were a little more believing.
Not too long ago, Edward Snowden released documents
detailing the NSA’s surveillance program named PRISM among other intelligence
programs. At the time in an unprecedented trip the head of the NSA went to
speak to the BLACKHAT conference in Las Vegas. Among statements made at the
conference were that the NSA did not have the ability read the contents of an
email.
Unlike a conference hearing in congress, this was a room
full of computer security experts. So, of course there was a loud shout from
the crowd of “Bullsh@t, if I can do it, you damn sure can!“ Fast forward to
this past week and the NSA reveals that they have discontinued the policy of
reading the contents of emails sent by American Citizens.
And so this brings me back to my original statement, maybe
Trump is right, but in the language of “Politicians and Media” the surveillance
wasn’t “ILLEGAL” and it was all electronic and not “TAPPING a PHONE LINE”, so
the entire statement is obviously false. Only in Washington could such logic be
followed much less believed.
The take away for the rest of us: IF you wouldn’t share that
message, text or photo with your Grandma, you probably shouldn’t send it across
the internet.
