Telekom switch panel boxes, which have lost their innocence. As my non-photographic skills are in highest demand at the moment, I don’t know if I manage to visualize my reaction to that eavesdropping on non-US citizens that was only suspected for decades. When I was a toddler in the UNIX world, I was mightily astonished to learn that my favorite editor, emacs, had a ‘distract-nsa’ mode that interspersed filter trigger words in mails. What I felt as something paranoid at that time unfortunately did exactly hit the point from then to now.
… and given how many people in the States are now having access to all this gathered information, through all kinds of companies and subcontractors, the potential to cause harm to innocents is rather high. On the other hand, the potential of all this to blow up in the face of the spies seems to be rather high also, if there only are enough whistle-blowers.
Juha, unfortunately more and more I tend to see the U.S. not as the “land of the free” any more. Their constitution offers freedom in so many aspects (I do not agree with all of them), but the governing paranoia cuts back all this to freedom for some and no rights for others. I would never have expected to become that disappointed of Obama!