9th Engineer:
I have never been to prison. I don't know about you, but I reckon we both have read and watched enough to get a common read on how much liberty, privacy and freedom the inmates enjoy. Practically zero, am I right? Do we agree? 100 percent monitoring of communications, movement, actions, everything, all the time, forever and ever. And it's freaking expensive too. Costs more to jail someone in federal prison than to send them a student to college. (No, I don't have the numbers to four significant digits.)
And still, crime happens in prison. Inmates are terrorized by other inmates. There are well documented cases of horrible abuses of power by the jailers. There is no escaping evil in human society, regardless of how tightly constrained that society is. It is not possible.
When I hear you or others say "I want the government to take action" or "Protect me!!", my response is that life is dangerous. The very perfume of freedom flows from the secret, delicate centers of two of our great nations most precious flowers, liberty and privacy. As my analogy hopefully illustrates, taking away the flowers deprives us of the pleasure of the pefume without protecting us from any of the danger.
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Originally Posted by 9th Engineer
Plus, if people are getting angery over something capable of only catching your average person, can you imagine the response to a government electronic surveillance program with the power to catch professional hackers??
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You're right. I'm pissed off now, and more would be worse. Tragically, there is no amount of surveillance that will accomplish the putative goal. Already we're crushing the living heart of what makes us Americans, the land of the free and home of the brave, by surrendering our freedoms and capitulating to fear.
The ONLY answer is to stop drinking the kool-aid. Don't be afraid. Do be diligent in retaining your rights. Don't give terrorists the victory over America by giving away the traits that make us Americans.