It’s Saturday Morning and I’m sitting in front of my home office computer working on a software project for my place of work because just as I was getting out of bed I thought of a code change I needed to implement. As I said to a friend recently, I don’t have a good work ethic, I have an obsessive compulsive disorder.

The EFF as usual, gets it right…

In response to the recent news reports about the National Security Agency’s surveillance program, President Barack Obama said today, “When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening to your telephone calls.” Instead, the government was just “sifting through this so-called metadata.” The Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made a similar comment last night: “The program does not allow the Government to listen in on anyone’s phone calls. The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the identity of any subscriber.”

What they are trying to say is that disclosure of metadata—the details about phone calls, without the actual voice—isn’t a big deal, not something for Americans to get upset about if the government knows. Let’s take a closer look at what they are saying:

They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don’t know what you talked about.

They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.

They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don’t know what was discussed.

“In theory, you could add the check of exposing the system to the light of day, but that means wrecking much of its intelligence value”, they’re saying over at Volokh, exposing to the light of day the usual contempt wingers have for democracy. That would be the Voters you’re talking about there Baker, and why goodness gracious the system Was exposed to the light of day, otherwise known as the Voters, we’re all arguing about it now aren’t we, and if they ever catch the whistleblower who let the voters know what their government was doing to them that person will think Bradley Manning had it easy.

But I am just a computer geek who just happens to be working on a space science program which will itself fling a fucking torrent of data back at planet earth for astronomers to make sense of. Every now and then I get a bit worried when I see the disconnect between my understanding of how electronic information systems work and everyone else’s. Then I see articles like that Forbes Magazine one where they described how Target figured out a teenage girl was pregnant before her parents did and sent her helpful offerings of child care products and I feel a little better. Then I see this. Oh they’re not listening to our phone calls, just capturing the metadata…nothing to worry about citizen.

But never mind the metadata. If the deep secrecy going on here, where not just court orders are secret but the government’s interpretation of the laws its supposed to be following are secret too isn’t scaring the hell out of you then I have to wonder why you even bother following the news or taking the trouble to vote.

I am not an anti-government crank. I am a liberal FDR democrat. I believe in democracy. But for democracy to work you need elections, and for those to work you need voters who know what the fuck is going on. Oliver Willis stupid shit reductio ad absurdums notwithstanding. Nobody is demanding Geraldo Rivera follow CIA agents around with a TV camera while Jerry Springer provides a running commentary. But when oversight itself becomes a state secret, when the governments own interpretations of the laws binding it are kept from the voters, then it’s a catastrophe waiting to happen. I am not an anti-government crank, I am a liberal FDR democrat, and I believe in democratic government. And one reason I believe in democratic government is power corrupts. The light of day is a good thing.

He created a TV series whose central plot hook was wiretapping…his business is entertainment…which gives him more credibility as to how modern computer networks, data storage and data archiving and mining technologies work than the news media. Yes, Mr. Simon, you may well be right about that.   Sadly.   However…

When the Guardian, or the Washington Post or the New York Times editorial board – which displayed an astonishing ignorance of the realities of modern electronic surveillance in its quick, shallow wade into this non-controversy – are able to cite the misuse of the data for reasons other than the interception of terrorist communication, or to show that Americans actually had their communications monitored without sufficient probable cause and judicial review and approval of that monitoring, then we will have ourselves a nice, workable scandal.

…and then…

And in fairness, having the FISA courts rulings so hidden from citizen review, makes even the discovery of such misuse problematic.

I’d have to say that is eminently fair.

“Frankly, I’m a bit amazed that the NSA and FBI have their shit together enough to be consistently doing what they should be doing with the vast big-data stream of electronic communication.”   I’m sure you are Mr. TV writer sir.   Because like a lot of people you’re focusing on the amount of the data.   Yes, it’s very large isn’t it. Huge even.

I am but a mere computer geek who happens to be working on a space science project that does, in fact, involve capturing a fucking torrent of data, archiving it, and providing tools to researchers to help them make that data make sense.   Before that I did the same as a contract software engineer designing and implementing business systems.   I’ve been working in this world for decades now.   You’re looking at the wrong problem.

Let me tell you something about data Mr. Simon.   Data doesn’t matter.   It’s the connections between the data that matter.   It isn’t what you said, it’s who you talk to and who they talk to and who they talk to, that tells a story about your life, about who you are.   You remember don’t you, all the fuss not very long ago when someone showed Facebook users how much information about their private lives anyone could glean, simply by looking at their friend’s lists?   Remember that Forbes Magazine article about how Target found out a teenage girl was pregnant before her father did?   They didn’t have to read her email or private text messages and it was easy.   All they needed was enough data to make good connections between products and lives.

Do research for your TV shows do you?   A bit surprised that NSA and FBI can do anything with that “…vast big-data stream…” are you?   Hahahahahahahaha.   The bigger the data stream, the more precise your profiles. Sure, if you had to listen in on every goddamn phone conversation in the United States of America, as opposed to just the phone calls of a few drug dealers in Baltimore…

…you’d be swamped.   You couldn’t possibly make sense of it all.   But that’s not what happens.   For their purposes Mr Simon, more is better.   Much, Much better.

Conversations are noise.   It’s the connections that matter.   You’re looking at the wrong problem.   But that’s okay.   That’s where you’re supposed to be looking.

Renewed my Disney World annual pass the other day with no hesitation. Going back next month for a week of de-stressing. Here’s a blog post from Mad Magazine artist Tom Richmond about why he keeps going back with his family. Pay attention to point number 3 because that’s the critical difference. Disney is preternaturally good at hiring exactly their sort of person and it makes all the difference.

(Richmond, who has a severely handicapped daughter, also has a post worth reading about how some well-to-do people are hiring handicapped people to get them ahead of everyone else in the lines…)

Before I started going I thought all that relentless Have A Magical Day pixie dust they keep sprinkling on guests would get seriously on my nerves and it is just the opposite. Once you get inside it isn’t long before you realize that part of what the “Cast Members” are doing is keeping the stresses and troubles of the world outside the parks off your back while you are inside. And they’re not faking it, it’s the sort of people they are: cheerful, friendly, Disney people. So I actually didn’t get all the ostentatious forced cheerfulness I was afraid of getting soaked in. The sentimentality was genuine. But this was true of Walt Disney too.

You really begin to appreciate it very much. And then suddenly you are use to it and all the other tourist parks and recreation zones just don’t measure up. Yes you can have a good time in them, but not a Disney time.

There is a bar in Hollywood Studios, the Tune-In Lounge next to the 50s Prime Time Cafe’, I make a point of ending my day as often as practical in while I’m there. I could wish there was one of these here in Baltimore, but of course it wouldn’t be the same because Baltimore is definitely not Disney World. The sort of coarse rowdy drunken asshole you are likely to meet in most city bars don’t come to Disney World because they can’t stand all that Mickey Mouse stuff and so the bar is full of Disney people and the atmosphere is relaxed and friendly and cheerful and I love it.

There are other places I go to have a good time and de-stress. Key West being the other top destination on my list. But mostly all those other places are places I go to be alone. Walt Disney World is one of a very Very few places I go to be with other people. Other people who still believe somewhere deep down inside despite it all, that there’s a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day. I know I can find them there.