Metadata Equals Surveillance
Schneier sets up and knocks down a strawman:"Back in June, when the contents of Edward Snowden's cache of NSA documents were just starting to be revealed and we learned about the NSA collecting phone metadata of every American, many people -- including President Obama -- discounted the seriousness of the NSA's actions by saying that it's just metadata."The NSA and Obama aren't "discounting" the NSA's actions because it's "just metadata." They're defending the legality of the NSA's actions by saying that it's "just metadata."The legally relevant distinction isn't how informative data versus metadata is, but who generated and controls the information that's the subject of surveillance. AT&T's metadata about your calls is generated by AT&T's equipment, stored on its servers, and is generally not even accessible to you. That not only puts it squarely within the domain of the third party doctrine, but makes it very hard to argue that it fits within even a common sense lay person's reading of the 4th amendment (which guarantees "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects."). Arguing that AT&T's data is your data is an uphill battle to say the least.Now, maybe third party doctrine is obsolete in a world where people voluntarily give over to third parties every detail about their lives.[1] But it doesn't contribute to that debate for Schneier to totally mischaracterize what Obama is saying.[1] In my opinion, privacy is obsolete in a world where people voluntarily give over to third parties every detail about their lives, but reasonable minds can differ on that point.