Uhg, video.
this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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Privacy
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Just give me an article I can peruse at my leisure.
"Is the Government Running a Dragnet on VPN Users?" — Naomi Brockwell TV (22 May 2026, ~11 min)
The video centres on a public warning from US Senator Ron Wyden, asking the government to disclose how it treats VPN traffic for surveillance purposes. Naomi Brockwell argues this is a deliberate signal — Wyden's history of asking pointed public questions when he can't disclose classified information suggests he already knows something damning.
Key threads:
- The 2013 parallel — Wyden did the same thing before the Snowden revelations, asking NSA Director Clapper in a Senate hearing whether the NSA collected data on millions of Americans. Clapper said "not wittingly." Snowden then proved that was a lie.
- The VPN loophole — VPN providers, particularly US-based ones, may be subject to government data requests or bulk collection programs that aren't publicly disclosed. The implication is that using a VPN could route your traffic through infrastructure that is itself being monitored.
- The Massie angle — Rep. Thomas Massie is also referenced as being aware of a classified spying program he legally cannot discuss publicly.
- Should you still use a VPN? — The video argues VPNs still provide value against commercial tracking and ISP snooping, but they are not a silver bullet against government-level surveillance. The real problem is the legal framework that allows warrantless data collection.
- Surveillance Accountability Act — The video ends by flagging proposed legislation aimed at closing the loophole that enables this kind of bulk collection without judicial oversight.
Bottom line: If you're using a VPN for privacy from government surveillance, this video argues you may be getting a false sense of security — and that Wyden is hinting at something classified that would concern most users if it became public.
Tbf if you're using a US based VPN company and/or US based servers and you're trying to hide from the US government, I mean what do you expect? Try using Mullvad and servers in Switzerland and you'll probably have a better chance, but frankly VPNs have never been for hiding from government level threats, that's what Tails/Tor and Qubes/Whonix are for (and even then there's the possibility of correlation attacks since like most nodes are controlled by the US gov, but if people started running more nodes themselves that would help a lot.)
You can trust a company registered in your country to follow its laws, or you can trust a company registered somewhere else in the world to follow your laws, their laws, and their advertising.
There's a reason I trust a company who has had their ceo go to jail multiple times as my VPN provider.