Personally, I think this is a debate that gets very polarised, and a lot of people are either too blasé or overly paranoid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregg Bell
A lot of (unthinking) people act like the internet is this thing that is beyond the human realm. It's not. People are hitting all those keystrokes that are making the algorithms that spy on your mail. And people are making those decisions to spy on your mail.
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This, I think, is a good point. The government might not care about me, but certain individuals employed by them might.
This case struck a chord with me at the time because (for long-winded and irrelevant reasons) it's a supermarket that I and lots of my friends have an attachment to.
Basically, someone with access to car registration records used them (illegally) to find out where someone else lived, so that his mate could go and throw a brick through the person's window. The issue there wasn't the government, it was an individual that had access to government data. I don't object to the government having that data, but they do need to ensure that individuals don't misuse their access to it.