Never has it been so easy to know so much about so many.
Thursday's disclosure that three of the nation's biggest telephone companies gave customer calling records to the National Security Agency again demonstrates that technology is rewriting the rules of privacy faster than the law can adapt.
And with their powerful database programs tracking a massive amount of personal details of Americans' daily lives, a growing number of companies find themselves sandwiched between the privacy expectations of their customers and the national security demands of the federal government.
"It's so easy to say yes," said technology security expert Bruce Schneier. "The government sings a patriotic song, and you want to do what's right. We all want to band together."
With the rise of lightning-fast ways to collect, collate and distribute digital data, county sheriffs, credit card companies and even nosy neighbors can dig up private information. But in many cases it is the federal government that has been looking over the public's virtual shoulder.
The NSA program is the most recent example of how personal data collected for commercial purposes can be used in unexpected ways.
"You have to think about how that information could be misused or used too zealously," said constitutional law professor Martin S. Flaherty of Fordham Law School in New York. "At the end of the day, you're still talking about information on private parties."
The data collected by the NSA over the last four years did not routinely include individual names. The NSA is barred from deliberately tracking U.S. residents. Instead, the data were used to map calling patterns in search of clues to help identify terrorist activity.
Even so, civil liberties advocates said the effort raised questions about the government's willingness to use technology to skirt privacy laws.
"This is the most comprehensive surveillance of the American public ever undertaken by the American government," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Information Policy Center.
Said attorney Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "There is simply no legal process for this kind of wholesale invasion of privacy. What they claim to be doing with the data is irrelevant because the fact is they could do whatever they choose without any oversight."
