a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
ipreferpi  ·  3724 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why should an honest person care about NSA surveillance?

I'm not sure that honest people don't care about NSA Surveillance. While it's true that information/or misinformation collected/stored about someone could be damaging to said person. However, the tenant of this podcast on why one shouldn't want surveillance seems to focus primarily around abuse related to religious persecution (witch hunts, etc.). Further, to my knowledge, the data NSA is collecting on a blanket basis is not the type of data that would label someone who could be persecuted on religious basis.

If I knew more about the reality of what the NSA collects and stores, I could certainly be persuaded, but I don't currently so I don't worry about it. For me personally, I'm more of a John Stuart Mill's greatest good fan on this issue. Whatever is in the best interest of the whole (everyone) is probably the way to address NSA actions. So if collecting phone numbers/call information that can be used to prevent a massive deadly event then I'm okay with this level of "surveillance."

I think it's scary to think somehow something I say (or worse didn't) could come back to haunt me, but on the other hand I'm pretty confident this won't occur in my lifetime. Maybe this belief is naive, but again if this naivety saves me or others from terrorist attacks then I'm okay with it.