You're minimizing the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I don't want arbitrary or harmful laws enforced in the name of counter-terrorism anymore than you do, but don't act as though 3000 lives lost in a direct attack on our soil are insignificant by any measure.
For all it's doing wrong, the NSA has a goal in mind to try to protect the American people. If its methods become cancerous that is one thing, but factor in the intentions here. They are not trying to ruin lives, even though their perspectives might be warped.
For all it's doing wrong, the NSA has a goal in mind to try to protect the American people. If its methods become cancerous that is one thing, but factor in the intentions here. They are not trying to ruin lives, even though their perspectives might be warped.
This idea is mistaken because nobody knows what their intents are. Your idea of "just trust them" isn't comforting; quite the opposite.
They are not comparable to Osama bin Ladin. bin Ladin cannot do more than add a tiny increment to the risk that Americans go through every day in life. The government, however, by monopolizing violence, can then use that violence to take away anything that makes life good.
A government that has lost accountability is far more dangerous than a terrorist organization. If you don't believe that, ask those who fled the Soviet Union, or who lived through Saddam's regime in Iraq.
Osama Bin Laden is dead, remember? Who is our enemy now? At what point is the war on terror over -- when do we declare victory?
The problem here is that there is no end to this. It will drag on and on, with more and more freedoms lost as long as people continue to cower in fear like this.
>>I don't want arbitrary or harmful laws enforced in the name of counter-terrorism anymore than you do, but don't act as though 3000 lives lost in a direct attack on our soil are insignificant by any measure.
Frankly, I would argue that the 3,000 lives lost in the attacks pale in comparison to the total number of casualties that occurred during the Iraq War. You can look at the numbers yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Frankly, I would argue that the 2,400 lives lost at Pearl Harbor pale in comparison to the total number of casualties that occurred during the war in the Pacific.
Events like 9/11 have a significance beyond a raw casualty count, and you know that as well as I do. I'm not even sure what your point is. If you think OBL's goal was to inconvenience people at airports, you've left reality far, far behind.
Frankly, I would argue that the 2,400 lives lost at Pearl Harbor pale in comparison to the total number of casualties that occurred during the war in the Pacific.
Pearl Harbor was the first act of that war, not a cause of the war. Whereas Osama bin Laden didn't have much capacity to do anything beyond 9/11 style attacks, the Japanese were intending to take control of the entire pacific. There is a huge difference there.
Hedge funds in cahoots with the NSA could for example predict currency/stock prices with all the extra information. Powerful businessmen/politicians could use it to blackmail others into getting their way using the private info. You can sorta trust the good intentioned nerds over at google to not abuse the private info - but faceless people over NSA is a different matter.
For all it's doing wrong, the NSA has a goal in mind to try to protect the American people. If its methods become cancerous that is one thing, but factor in the intentions here. They are not trying to ruin lives, even though their perspectives might be warped.