> Do all these people writing 'I searched for Glastonbury Tor, now I'm on a terrorist watch-list, stupid NSA, Hah!' really believe that they system works like that?
It gets better, they believe NSA is devilishly competent when it serves their argument that NSA is simply out to oppress the populace, but then simultaneously believe NSA is so foolish as to waste a bunch of time tracking non-threats who happen to trip over enough keywords.
Double-think: It's not just for the Party leadership.
You should pay more attention then, since that's the argument used for why NSA in particular is a threat and not allied foreign intelligence agencies like BND. Seriously, I've had someone tell me that BND is no threat because they're derived from an ineffective West German intelligence agency instead of the very good East German equivalent.
If NSA were incompetent they'd be a sideshow and no threat at all.
It gets better, they believe NSA is devilishly competent when it serves their argument that NSA is simply out to oppress the populace, but then simultaneously believe NSA is so foolish as to waste a bunch of time tracking non-threats who happen to trip over enough keywords.
Double-think: It's not just for the Party leadership.