By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026Contrast this with NSA spying: they accumulated detailed surveillance dossiers on about 6 billion internet users using a staff of no more than 5 million spooks (in 2013, about 5 million Americans were eligible for security clearance). 47/ 11196
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026If *every single person with security clearance in the USA* was working on the NSA's surveillance program, that would mean that by 2013, computers had made it possible for a spy to keep tabs on *more than a thousand people*. 48/ 21206
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026Orders of magnitude improvements in a mere generation! This is the kind of productivity lift that economists dream of when they fantasize about the dividends from automation. But *why*? Why spy? 49/ 11344
Wendell Albright @wendella.bsky.social · 11/08/2026you'd be right (and I don't discount the concerns about surveillance), but frankly most people in the US government (and contractors) with security clearances aren't doing surveillance you need a security clearance for a lot of other non-intel-related stuff, too 000
