SURVEILLANCE STATE: Let’s recap [updated]

Take your eye off the flight of Edward Snowden, advises Forbes writer Andy Greenberg, and put it back where it belongs.

The world has become so caught up in the suspense and intrigue of the Snowden Affair–practically a ready-made Robert Ludlum title–that it seems to have almost forgotten the massive National Security Agency surveillance controversy that he’s risked his future to bring to light…
    is as good a time as any to take an intermission from the drama and recall the real story: the biggest global privacy scandal of the decade. Here’s a recap of Snowden’s leaked documents published so far, in my own highly subjective order of importance.

While his successful flight from America has so far indicated that the US can’t always lay a finger on you (so far, at least), what’s been revealed in the information he’s released indicates that they can listen to you wherever you are in the world, and no matter who you are in the world.

And add to that the further revelation that to spy on one’s own citizens “legally,” all that is necessary is a reciprocal deal with another country’s spooks—and everyone outside the US needs to worry about the NSA as much as those within.

UPDATE: And in New Zealand, the Law Society confirms our foreign intelligence service is being rapidly transformed into a domestic intelligence agency with minimal effective supervision.

Nice.