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Comment by icantthinkofone | Hacker News Reader

No. I have no need to. There are better things to do with my time.

It's like saying I won't drive my car on the street because the police are watching you. But the police are looking for bad guys, not me. I'm not a bad guy.

I see so many people trying to block the police from doing their work finding bad guys. They don't want road checks for drunk drivers but then complain when a drunk driver kills someone. They don't want license plate scans for criminals and drug trafficking yet complain when they aren't caught.

They don't want the NSA scanning internet traffic and email yet complain they didn't catch the Boston bombers and others ahead of time while actively protesting the same thing.

I fear people like Snowden more than anything else.

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    They don't want road checks for drunk drivers but then
    complain when a drunk driver kills someone. They don't
    want license plate scans for criminals and drug trafficking
    yet complain when they aren't caught.

I think the problem here is not that people don't want police to do those things, it's the belief that the power, once granted, will be abused. Drunk driving checks to catch drunk drivers are a good thing, but what about when a cop forces you out of your car because he didn't like your attitude? License plate scans are also good for catching criminals, but what about if the police store the data forever and tie it to personal IDs of people? Would you want the police to have a record forever of everywhere you've gone?

This is the problem with saying you have no need to. You assume you have already thought of every possible case when in fact, that's impossible to do. The most important part in the fight for personal privacy is in protecting the freedoms we have from potential abuse.

You can come up with all kinds of "what ifs" while forgetting our (in the US) system of checks and balances which protestors forget about and want to circumvent by creating vigilante groups to take care of matters on their own. Anything can be made open for abuse but you are assuming no one is watching and will do nothing about it.

Funny. Just a few minutes ago, I was watching NBC News story about the 3 teenage kids who went to Syria on their own. The family lawyer complained that, since the government is watching all the social media they posted on, why didn't they alert the family so this could be stopped?

To which all of HN would reply, "But ... but ..."

Funny but, on NBC News tonight, there was a story about 3 kids who went to Syria on their own. The family lawyer complained that the government, which is watching Facebook and all the social media they posted on, according to him, why didn't they alert the family to prevent this.

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