> I think it's a bit disingenuous to call this "a new kind of spying" all of the data they're using is publicly available.
Actual spies devote substantial resources to analyzing publicly available information.[1] I'm not really sure how I feel about all of this as a moral or political issue, but I do think it's fair say that it's "a new kind of spying".
Put another way -- the FBI has long had the ability to follow you around as you drove around town on publicly accessible roads. But the ability to track millions of people on public roads via cell phone triangulation is unprecedented.
Actual spies devote substantial resources to analyzing publicly available information.[1] I'm not really sure how I feel about all of this as a moral or political issue, but I do think it's fair say that it's "a new kind of spying".
Put another way -- the FBI has long had the ability to follow you around as you drove around town on publicly accessible roads. But the ability to track millions of people on public roads via cell phone triangulation is unprecedented.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_intelligence