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Comment by TrickyRick | Hacker News Reader

Government tracking (Prism etc) are generally not about tracking actions taken by dentists, doctors, skydivers, or whatever. The interest is in things like catching terrorists and criminals.

As you can see the same argument can be applied to any form of mass surveillance.

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I don't want this to be taken as a blanket claim that there is no merit to considerations of privacy in this realm, but there is a critical distinction between flight tracking and license plate vehicle tracking. Am infinitesimally small proportion of people have to fly private planes without option. American society has become such that the same cannot so be definitively said about automobiles. For large segments of the population, their cars are, for better or worse, a necessity of their daily lives and opting out of their use would be tantamount to opting out of society as it is. Yes, people can move to places where cars aren't needed, either because other forms of transportation can fulfill they're requirements or because life becomes hyper localized and there's no need to travel the distances licensed vehicles are required for. But not everyone can do that, literally; hyper localized loves are typically underpinned by other people bringing crap to you in vehicles with license plates being tracked. For many people, getting between a job they need and a neighborhood they can afford to live in, requires a private car. Having those people movements tracked it's more of a concern to me than done rich person who decides to take their personal plane to Aspen for the weekend.

Not at all.

No, sorry, the world doesn't operate how you wish it or were told it does. And I don't think you yet comprehend the Snowden revelations, the military-industrial complex, the nature of powerful elites, inverted totalitarianism or reality. Please stop peddling the party-line lies of manufactured consent and educate yourself outside of the mainstream media and the many others who are also brainwashed but don't realize it.

I think you may need to re-read my post, my point was exactly that it's not a good argument :)

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