We’ve recently learned that a secret court changed the legal definition of the word “relevant” to further National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance efforts. Wikibon Principal Research Contributor Jeff Kelly discussed the ruling and its implications in a recent interview on SiliconAngle NewsDesk with Kristin Feledy.

Jeff says that the government started snooping on American citizens after the USA Patriot Act of 2001 passed into law. The legislation was deemed too ambiguous by lawmakers, and was eventually amended to limit data gathering based on context: data could only be collected and analyzed if deemed relevant to a specific investigation.

A few years down the line, a secret court revised the bill once again by extending the definition of ‘relevant’ to practically any source of data. The Patriot Act doesn’t say so explicitly, Jeff explains, but the modern approach to analytics is so holistic that everything can be considered relevant to a given subject.

“One of the things about Big Data is that insights gleaned from analyzing all sorts of data sources that might not seem related to the problem at hand can actually solve interesting problems. If you take multiple data sources, integrate them, [and] do some analysis on them you can find connections between otherwise seemingly innocuous data points,” he explains. “So the idea of having just a relevant tiny slice of data related to a specific investigation just doesn’t make sense anymore from a technology perspective.”

Jeff elaborates. He highlights that every person – including potential terror suspects – generates a ‘data exhaust trail’ that spans from phone records to social media interactions. The NSA and other agencies that monitor digital communications leverage the same methodologies and use the same technologies as their private sector peers. Jeff says for this reason and others, the NSA’s definition of the world ‘relevant’ pertains to both governmental and enterprise use of personal data.

Consumer-facing firms crunch information to boost their marketing, improve their products, and personalize services. Jeff says that companies should restrict analytics in these areas, and stresses that public awareness of privacy needs to increase.

Click the video below for the full interview.