You disregard all the harm that anonymity causes online, from bullying, to hate speech, to terrorism.
No, I don't. Anything could be abused, but it's 100% anti-freedom to say it should be banned merely because of that. These are not legitimate concerns. Freedom is more important than safety.
Pro-anonymity advocates have been saying for years that Freedom of Expression will fix all ills
No, they haven't.
but the statue quo is not sustainable.
It is and has been sustainable. There is no "middle ground" which doesn't violate people's privacy and speech rights, which makes any such "middle ground" 100% unacceptable. Why not move to North Korea?
I disagree. Security lines at airports operated by the government are unconstitutional. So unless you're suggesting that we eliminate the TSA, I can't get behind what you're saying.
What the fuck are you talking about, and how does it relate to any of my points? Are you trying to convince me that the things I listed above are actually good because some of them supposedly keep us 'safe'? That's not going to work on me if so, because I believe fundamental liberties are more important than safety. And these things affect *everyone*, not just people who may die.
I've been through this. They're unconstitutional, and it doesn't matter how much you support them. But like the TSA, the government simply violates the constitution to get what it wants.
If you want freedom from DUI roadchecks, then I want the freedom to pull your drunk ass out of your car and beat you within an inch or less of your life.
Absolutely no one is saying that you have the freedom to drive erratically while drunk. What I am saying is that I don't want more TSA-like nonsense where everyone is forced to be searched simply because some people are drinking and driving. If you want to pull people over who a cop *sees* driving erratically, then that gives them an actual reason to pull that person over.
See how that works? And best of all, you don't have to violate innocent people's rights.
When you make a social contract you have to give up some freedoms.
The constitution is part of the social contract, you god damn idiot. Did you ignore all my points? Did you read my post about how exploitable it is?
The government can *only* do what the constitution says it can. It is that way *by design*. You *cannot* be forced to give up your constitutional liberties merely because you want to do something perfectly innocuous (i.e. drive around, get on a plane, etc.). Either respond to my points or don't bother responding; posting more authoritarian drivel that doesn't even look like a response to my comments is not going to do you one bit of good.
You missed my fundamental point. It's not the nature of the data, it's the value of the data. It's one thing to collect data without providing anything tangable in return, quite another in exchange for payment, products, or services.
It's not about value or receiving anything in return; to me, it's about morality and priorities.
As for your poor liberties I feel so sorry that you're being actively oppressed by your government. Except you're not
Except I am, and I explained why. You're under the delusion that the only harm that exists is physical harm. However, people in a constitutional republic such as the US are harmed by having the constitution violated, because it's a direct violation of the agreement that the government can only do what the constitution says it can. Other than that, violating people's rights is a good way to harm them.
Metadata could have been used to find Paul Revere. We kill people based on metadata. To suggest that it's no big deal suggests that you're anti-freedom and opposed to the constitution.
just not a very good debating strategy.
Being a good debater usually just involves being the biggest bullshitter. Insulting someone does not invalidate any of your arguments.
Anyway I assume I won't hear from you again because you're evil government will come and lock you up because they are collecting meta data on you and you're speaking out against your oppressive regime.
False dilemma. "Either your government is out to murder you for speaking out, or they're a perfectly good government." While they might not be after the common people at this time, they *are* collecting communications metadata on nearly everyone, which violates people's rights and the constitution. And they almost undoubtedly will use this to selectively oppress a minority of people that they deem to be a threat (i.e. good leaders capable of rallying people to change the system). Just like they were wiretapping MLK and harassed countless innocent people in the name of stopping communism.
By the way you should actually experience oppression some day.
"X is worse than Y, so Y isn't bad." "There are countries with governments worse than the US government, so the US government isn't bad." Non sequitur. How about I punch you in the face, and then make up the excuse that since there are starving people in Africa in a much worse situation than you, what I did wasn't bad?
Do you have any more illogical excuses you want to make for a government that's violating people's rights and the highest law of the land?
How about this: By getting in a car, you implicitly consent to giving up your first amendment rights, and your right to life. An officer murdering you for saying something he doesn't like is therefore 100% constitutional.
I knew one of you morons would show up. Even if it is true that driving is a 'privilege' *that does not mean your constitutional rights are null and void the second you decide to innocuously exercise that privilege!* The fourth amendment still applies, and the government has absolutely no constitutional authority to disregard people's rights just because they want to exercise something the government deems a 'privilege.' This logic is simply insane, and it's killing our freedoms.
It's the same sort of logic that allows for the TSA. "You implicitly consented to having your fundamental and constitutional rights violated by government thugs by trying to get on an airplane, so it's not a constitutional violation!" You're in good company, AC; government thugs all over the world drool when they see people using this awful logic to justify the erosion of people's fundamental liberties.
Democracy != free country. And yes, there are no truly free countries in the world, but being free is something we should aspire to. The US is, after all, supposed to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.' So people here would look less like hypocrites if they stopped supporting rights violations and constitutional violations, whether it be to increase their safety or some other reason.
Like robbery and murder are "none of the government's business"?
No, violating people's liberties simply because they could be criminals is not the government's business. It's not even constitutional.
Lacking fundamental defects in your understanding of the Constitution and law doesn't make you "authoritarian."
You have a number of fundamental defects in your understanding of the constitution.
No.
Yes. You admitted it yourself, by supporting the TSA. Or is this the phase where you deny that it's even a constitutional/rights violation, and then cite some court decision where the judges altered the constitution with invisible ink and ignored the spirit of the constitution to support their big government agenda?
That darned Constitution and the Constituional offices it created. Who does that "Supreme Court" think it is? Just becuase the Constitution created it....
So you're saying all of the Supreme Court's interpretations of the constitution are 100% objectively correct? Not even the founders agreed with that paradox ("The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal[...]"). They're no less fallible than anyone else, and not all of their decisions are 9-0. Furthermore, they've even overruled past decisions. I guess reality just changes as they see fit; they're actually gods.
If the Supreme Court interpreted the first amendment as saying that the government has the authority to murder anyone for any reason, then I guess it would be true. Thanks, cold fjord! You're like a superhero coming to save everyone from their ignorance!
So, will you be the one keeping about 2,000 guns off of planes this year?
No one will, because it's none of the government's business. Unless private companies want to try to secure their planes to prevent that from happening, it's none of your business. Oh, wait; you're an authoritarian, so you think everything is your business, and you will happily sacrifice the constitution and people's liberties in the name of safety, all the while denying that it's even a constitutional and rights violation, and appealing to fallible authority figures to 'prove' that you're objectively correct.
I wasn't aware that I was opposing useful technology simply because it might take away my job. You do know that's what a Luddite is, right? And you do know that not all uses of technology make sense, correct? Therefore, calling me a Luddite for criticizing a stupid use of Javascript makes absolutely zero sense.
The TSA does not need to be revamped; it needs to be destroyed. Anything less than complete elimination is unacceptable. Government thugs should not be in airports; the end. Same with the DHS, which should never have been created in the first place.
Why the hell do I have to enable javascript for that site and whitelist ajax.googleapis in order to see some fucking text? What a poorly-designed website.
Extremely few on any side of the political spectrum in the US (barring government & MIC) wants an Orwellian surveillance//security/police state.
How many people support DUI checkpoints, free speech zones, unfettered border searches, constitution-free zones, the TSA, the NSA's mass surveillance, protest permits, stop-and-frisk-type policies, unwarranted surveillance in general, or assassination of citizens without trial? They only have to be a supporter of one of them to be a supporter of a police state, and I can't tell you how many people I've personally conversed with that supported a number of those as long as it makes them feel safe. In 'the land of the free and the home of the brave,' freedom should be considered more important than safety, but I don't think most people see it that way.
And even if most people did see it that way, look at how many people changed their tunes directly after 9/11? If people are so weak and unprincipled that a disaster can make them give a bunch of power to the government, then all it takes is another disaster for the government to take advantage of, and we'll lose all that progress.
Also, you're incorrect about the TSA. Most people are either apathetic about it or support *some* security there, even if it violates people's rights and the constitution.
Straw man, right off the bat. I was using his own logic against him (That people don't care, so it doesn't matter.) to show how ridiculous it is. That you have a problem with my example shows, I think, that you agree such logic is ridiculous.
Never once did I say that the TSA and choosing proprietary software are 100% similar. So that's your straw man, not mine. Learn what an analogy actually is and then come back to me.
and overwhelmingly people choose proprietary because that is where the innovation is
People choose proprietary software because our government is bought and paid for by corporations to such a degree that proprietary software is used everywhere in schools with little to no mentions of alternatives, and then classes are created that teach people via rote learning how to use specific proprietary software. What happens? People get used to the proprietary operating systems and software, and free software is therefore at a disadvantage.
The educational system is one place where free software should be mandated, and created, if necessary.
because free software is almost always a poor clone of proprietary software, not ahead of the curve, not innovative, just an also-ran me-too product.
Nonsense.
But even if that were true, free software is about morality. There are many things that would benefit me that would nonetheless be completely immoral, much like some proprietary software. The idea that I can't look at or modify the source code, and I'm beholden to some specific source that may be malicious (i.e. working with the government to violate people's privacy, as Snowden has shown), is immoral.
"P.S. I did vote for the guy, he seemed way better than the other guy who thought strapping an open dog carrier to the roof of his car was "okay" among other things"
If it was that, well, that was supposed to be a quote.
Continuing and even sometimes expanding the egregious violations of the constitution and people's fundamental liberties of the last administration and all his buddies in congress? Check. P.S. I did vote for the guy, he seemed way better than the other guy who thought strapping an open dog carrier to the roof of his car was "okay" among other things
You are the problem. You and your ilk only ensure that candidates from The One Party win time and time again. Both parties are filled with evil scumbags, and voting for either of them is the same as supporting all the various constitutional and rights violations that these people advocate. Voting for 'the lesser of two evils' is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy; third parties won't win because they won't win because assholes like you won't throw away your irrational fear of wasting your vote and just vote for them. They don't even need to win; getting a significant number of votes will send a message to candidates from The One Party.
Regardless of any of that, voting for evil scumbags should make anyone with any sort of principles and a love for freedom want to vomit.
Are they? Some minor personal data such as web searches vs some real tangible improvement in my life?
Some people call metadata "minor," too, and yet it easily could have been used to find Paul Revere. You'd be surprised at what they're capable of when using only "minor" data.
The reality is the vast majority of the world is not at all affected by DRM, and that does not make them all addicts.
But fortunately most of the western world is not actually afraid of their government.
And now your mentality has been revealed. Every citizen in every free country should be *cautious* of their governments. Why do you think we place limitations on their powers? Because hundreds of millions of people were abused and/or outright murdered throughout history by these 'trustworthy' fellows in governments, proving that it's foolish to give them too much power.
I'm sure you'd downplay the "metadata" the NSA is collecting too, as if it doesn't matter that they're violating people's rights and the constitution. You simply don't care about privacy, freedom, or anything else, and seek convenience above all else.
No they are not harming people by collecting data. They are only harming people by misusing data.
Fucking bullshit. They're violating the constitution and people's liberties, and that more than qualifies as harm to every person whose data they are collecting.
Your argument sounds like those people who think cameras should be banned in public parks because someone may take a photo of a child and then go home and masturbate to it.
Nope. Public place. The NSA intercepts people's communications, which is a rather different story.
Also, you're an idiot. *You're* the one who said that the collecting of the data is not harm, and it's the abuse of it that harms. I, however, do not require abuse to say that it is harm, so your example is nonsensical to begin with.
The reality is if something does not have an effect on your life then you are not actually being wronged.
The NSA's data collecting *does* have an effect on my life as a citizen in 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.' The constitution is the highest law of the land in the US, and if the government violates it, then that harms every single citizen.
You seem to think that physical harm is the only harm that exists; that's nonsense. You can harm people merely by infringing upon their liberties, whether or not something physical happened (although data collection is physical too).
Someone could be masturbating to a naked photo of me right now but I don't know about it so it isn't effecting me in any way.
And yet if someone installed spy cameras in someone's house and spied on them, they could sue for damages and that person would be put in prison even if the data was never 'misused.' The real misuse is in *collecting* the data.
Yeah, OK dumbass, you know best what other peoples priorities should be.
I know that the TSA needs to be eliminated, that the NSA's spying needs to be stopped, and that it's damn foolish to allow scummy corporations--which often work hand-in-hand with the government--to have access to your data unnecessarily.
That's what it feels like to a goddamn fruitcake who needs to see a shrink.
So if I was saying that 1 + 1 = 2, and everyone else was saying that it's not, I would need a shrink? This is just the bandwagon fallacy.
Slashdot Mirror
You disregard all the harm that anonymity causes online, from bullying, to hate speech, to terrorism.
No, I don't. Anything could be abused, but it's 100% anti-freedom to say it should be banned merely because of that. These are not legitimate concerns. Freedom is more important than safety.
Pro-anonymity advocates have been saying for years that Freedom of Expression will fix all ills
No, they haven't.
but the statue quo is not sustainable.
It is and has been sustainable. There is no "middle ground" which doesn't violate people's privacy and speech rights, which makes any such "middle ground" 100% unacceptable. Why not move to North Korea?
I disagree. Security lines at airports operated by the government are unconstitutional. So unless you're suggesting that we eliminate the TSA, I can't get behind what you're saying.
What the fuck are you talking about, and how does it relate to any of my points? Are you trying to convince me that the things I listed above are actually good because some of them supposedly keep us 'safe'? That's not going to work on me if so, because I believe fundamental liberties are more important than safety. And these things affect *everyone*, not just people who may die.
I've been through this. They're unconstitutional, and it doesn't matter how much you support them. But like the TSA, the government simply violates the constitution to get what it wants.
If you want freedom from DUI roadchecks, then I want the freedom to pull your drunk ass out of your car and beat you within an inch or less of your life.
Absolutely no one is saying that you have the freedom to drive erratically while drunk. What I am saying is that I don't want more TSA-like nonsense where everyone is forced to be searched simply because some people are drinking and driving. If you want to pull people over who a cop *sees* driving erratically, then that gives them an actual reason to pull that person over.
See how that works? And best of all, you don't have to violate innocent people's rights.
No, you're an idiot who thinks that the free market is capable of solving things, and that it isn't the job of government to protect its citizens.
Wrong. I'm just someone who thinks that the government has no constitutional authority to violate the constitution and people's fundamental liberties.
Do you disagree with this, or are you going to make the claim that it is constitutional, all the while completely ignoring the actual constitution?
If you're driving erratically
Do you know what a DUI checkpoint is?
Like the TSA, they stop everyone without any suspicion and violate their rights, as if everyone is a criminal.
When you make a social contract you have to give up some freedoms.
The constitution is part of the social contract, you god damn idiot. Did you ignore all my points? Did you read my post about how exploitable it is?
The government can *only* do what the constitution says it can. It is that way *by design*. You *cannot* be forced to give up your constitutional liberties merely because you want to do something perfectly innocuous (i.e. drive around, get on a plane, etc.). Either respond to my points or don't bother responding; posting more authoritarian drivel that doesn't even look like a response to my comments is not going to do you one bit of good.
I have absolutely zero idea what you're talking about, and how it relates to the TSA.
You missed my fundamental point. It's not the nature of the data, it's the value of the data. It's one thing to collect data without providing anything tangable in return, quite another in exchange for payment, products, or services.
It's not about value or receiving anything in return; to me, it's about morality and priorities.
As for your poor liberties I feel so sorry that you're being actively oppressed by your government. Except you're not
Except I am, and I explained why. You're under the delusion that the only harm that exists is physical harm. However, people in a constitutional republic such as the US are harmed by having the constitution violated, because it's a direct violation of the agreement that the government can only do what the constitution says it can. Other than that, violating people's rights is a good way to harm them.
Metadata could have been used to find Paul Revere. We kill people based on metadata. To suggest that it's no big deal suggests that you're anti-freedom and opposed to the constitution.
just not a very good debating strategy.
Being a good debater usually just involves being the biggest bullshitter. Insulting someone does not invalidate any of your arguments.
Anyway I assume I won't hear from you again because you're evil government will come and lock you up because they are collecting meta data on you and you're speaking out against your oppressive regime.
False dilemma. "Either your government is out to murder you for speaking out, or they're a perfectly good government." While they might not be after the common people at this time, they *are* collecting communications metadata on nearly everyone, which violates people's rights and the constitution. And they almost undoubtedly will use this to selectively oppress a minority of people that they deem to be a threat (i.e. good leaders capable of rallying people to change the system). Just like they were wiretapping MLK and harassed countless innocent people in the name of stopping communism.
By the way you should actually experience oppression some day.
"X is worse than Y, so Y isn't bad." "There are countries with governments worse than the US government, so the US government isn't bad." Non sequitur. How about I punch you in the face, and then make up the excuse that since there are starving people in Africa in a much worse situation than you, what I did wasn't bad?
Do you have any more illogical excuses you want to make for a government that's violating people's rights and the highest law of the land?
How about this: By getting in a car, you implicitly consent to giving up your first amendment rights, and your right to life. An officer murdering you for saying something he doesn't like is therefore 100% constitutional.
The possibilities are fucking endless!
Driving is a privilege not a right.
I knew one of you morons would show up. Even if it is true that driving is a 'privilege' *that does not mean your constitutional rights are null and void the second you decide to innocuously exercise that privilege!* The fourth amendment still applies, and the government has absolutely no constitutional authority to disregard people's rights just because they want to exercise something the government deems a 'privilege.' This logic is simply insane, and it's killing our freedoms.
It's the same sort of logic that allows for the TSA. "You implicitly consented to having your fundamental and constitutional rights violated by government thugs by trying to get on an airplane, so it's not a constitutional violation!" You're in good company, AC; government thugs all over the world drool when they see people using this awful logic to justify the erosion of people's fundamental liberties.
Democracy != free country. And yes, there are no truly free countries in the world, but being free is something we should aspire to. The US is, after all, supposed to be 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.' So people here would look less like hypocrites if they stopped supporting rights violations and constitutional violations, whether it be to increase their safety or some other reason.
Like robbery and murder are "none of the government's business"?
No, violating people's liberties simply because they could be criminals is not the government's business. It's not even constitutional.
Lacking fundamental defects in your understanding of the Constitution and law doesn't make you "authoritarian."
You have a number of fundamental defects in your understanding of the constitution.
No.
Yes. You admitted it yourself, by supporting the TSA. Or is this the phase where you deny that it's even a constitutional/rights violation, and then cite some court decision where the judges altered the constitution with invisible ink and ignored the spirit of the constitution to support their big government agenda?
That darned Constitution and the Constituional offices it created. Who does that "Supreme Court" think it is? Just becuase the Constitution created it ....
So you're saying all of the Supreme Court's interpretations of the constitution are 100% objectively correct? Not even the founders agreed with that paradox ("The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal[...]"). They're no less fallible than anyone else, and not all of their decisions are 9-0. Furthermore, they've even overruled past decisions. I guess reality just changes as they see fit; they're actually gods.
If the Supreme Court interpreted the first amendment as saying that the government has the authority to murder anyone for any reason, then I guess it would be true. Thanks, cold fjord! You're like a superhero coming to save everyone from their ignorance!
So, will you be the one keeping about 2,000 guns off of planes this year?
No one will, because it's none of the government's business. Unless private companies want to try to secure their planes to prevent that from happening, it's none of your business. Oh, wait; you're an authoritarian, so you think everything is your business, and you will happily sacrifice the constitution and people's liberties in the name of safety, all the while denying that it's even a constitutional and rights violation, and appealing to fallible authority figures to 'prove' that you're objectively correct.
I wasn't aware that I was opposing useful technology simply because it might take away my job. You do know that's what a Luddite is, right? And you do know that not all uses of technology make sense, correct? Therefore, calling me a Luddite for criticizing a stupid use of Javascript makes absolutely zero sense.
The TSA does not need to be revamped; it needs to be destroyed. Anything less than complete elimination is unacceptable. Government thugs should not be in airports; the end. Same with the DHS, which should never have been created in the first place.
Why the hell do I have to enable javascript for that site and whitelist ajax.googleapis in order to see some fucking text? What a poorly-designed website.
Extremely few on any side of the political spectrum in the US (barring government & MIC) wants an Orwellian surveillance//security/police state.
How many people support DUI checkpoints, free speech zones, unfettered border searches, constitution-free zones, the TSA, the NSA's mass surveillance, protest permits, stop-and-frisk-type policies, unwarranted surveillance in general, or assassination of citizens without trial? They only have to be a supporter of one of them to be a supporter of a police state, and I can't tell you how many people I've personally conversed with that supported a number of those as long as it makes them feel safe. In 'the land of the free and the home of the brave,' freedom should be considered more important than safety, but I don't think most people see it that way.
And even if most people did see it that way, look at how many people changed their tunes directly after 9/11? If people are so weak and unprincipled that a disaster can make them give a bunch of power to the government, then all it takes is another disaster for the government to take advantage of, and we'll lose all that progress.
So either way, I'm not too optimistic.
Also, you're incorrect about the TSA. Most people are either apathetic about it or support *some* security there, even if it violates people's rights and the constitution.
False equivalency.
Straw man, right off the bat. I was using his own logic against him (That people don't care, so it doesn't matter.) to show how ridiculous it is. That you have a problem with my example shows, I think, that you agree such logic is ridiculous.
Never once did I say that the TSA and choosing proprietary software are 100% similar. So that's your straw man, not mine. Learn what an analogy actually is and then come back to me.
and overwhelmingly people choose proprietary because that is where the innovation is
People choose proprietary software because our government is bought and paid for by corporations to such a degree that proprietary software is used everywhere in schools with little to no mentions of alternatives, and then classes are created that teach people via rote learning how to use specific proprietary software. What happens? People get used to the proprietary operating systems and software, and free software is therefore at a disadvantage.
The educational system is one place where free software should be mandated, and created, if necessary.
because free software is almost always a poor clone of proprietary software, not ahead of the curve, not innovative, just an also-ran me-too product.
Nonsense.
But even if that were true, free software is about morality. There are many things that would benefit me that would nonetheless be completely immoral, much like some proprietary software. The idea that I can't look at or modify the source code, and I'm beholden to some specific source that may be malicious (i.e. working with the government to violate people's privacy, as Snowden has shown), is immoral.
"P.S. I did vote for the guy, he seemed way better than the other guy who thought strapping an open dog carrier to the roof of his car was "okay" among other things"
If it was that, well, that was supposed to be a quote.
No, I don't vote for either republicans or democrats. What made you think that I do, given what I said?
Continuing and even sometimes expanding the egregious violations of the constitution and people's fundamental liberties of the last administration and all his buddies in congress? Check. P.S. I did vote for the guy, he seemed way better than the other guy who thought strapping an open dog carrier to the roof of his car was "okay" among other things
You are the problem. You and your ilk only ensure that candidates from The One Party win time and time again. Both parties are filled with evil scumbags, and voting for either of them is the same as supporting all the various constitutional and rights violations that these people advocate. Voting for 'the lesser of two evils' is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy; third parties won't win because they won't win because assholes like you won't throw away your irrational fear of wasting your vote and just vote for them. They don't even need to win; getting a significant number of votes will send a message to candidates from The One Party.
Regardless of any of that, voting for evil scumbags should make anyone with any sort of principles and a love for freedom want to vomit.
Are they? Some minor personal data such as web searches vs some real tangible improvement in my life?
Some people call metadata "minor," too, and yet it easily could have been used to find Paul Revere. You'd be surprised at what they're capable of when using only "minor" data.
The reality is the vast majority of the world is not at all affected by DRM, and that does not make them all addicts.
But fortunately most of the western world is not actually afraid of their government.
And now your mentality has been revealed. Every citizen in every free country should be *cautious* of their governments. Why do you think we place limitations on their powers? Because hundreds of millions of people were abused and/or outright murdered throughout history by these 'trustworthy' fellows in governments, proving that it's foolish to give them too much power.
I'm sure you'd downplay the "metadata" the NSA is collecting too, as if it doesn't matter that they're violating people's rights and the constitution. You simply don't care about privacy, freedom, or anything else, and seek convenience above all else.
No they are not harming people by collecting data. They are only harming people by misusing data.
Fucking bullshit. They're violating the constitution and people's liberties, and that more than qualifies as harm to every person whose data they are collecting.
Your argument sounds like those people who think cameras should be banned in public parks because someone may take a photo of a child and then go home and masturbate to it.
Nope. Public place. The NSA intercepts people's communications, which is a rather different story.
Also, you're an idiot. *You're* the one who said that the collecting of the data is not harm, and it's the abuse of it that harms. I, however, do not require abuse to say that it is harm, so your example is nonsensical to begin with.
The reality is if something does not have an effect on your life then you are not actually being wronged.
The NSA's data collecting *does* have an effect on my life as a citizen in 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.' The constitution is the highest law of the land in the US, and if the government violates it, then that harms every single citizen.
You seem to think that physical harm is the only harm that exists; that's nonsense. You can harm people merely by infringing upon their liberties, whether or not something physical happened (although data collection is physical too).
Someone could be masturbating to a naked photo of me right now but I don't know about it so it isn't effecting me in any way.
And yet if someone installed spy cameras in someone's house and spied on them, they could sue for damages and that person would be put in prison even if the data was never 'misused.' The real misuse is in *collecting* the data.
or did I just miss the sarcasm.
You missed the sarcasm.
Yeah, OK dumbass, you know best what other peoples priorities should be.
I know that the TSA needs to be eliminated, that the NSA's spying needs to be stopped, and that it's damn foolish to allow scummy corporations--which often work hand-in-hand with the government--to have access to your data unnecessarily.
That's what it feels like to a goddamn fruitcake who needs to see a shrink.
So if I was saying that 1 + 1 = 2, and everyone else was saying that it's not, I would need a shrink? This is just the bandwagon fallacy.