[arkey]

You're not taking purpose or context into consideration.

It is legal to smoke. It is legal to go into a restaurant. However, it is not legal to go into a restaurant and smoke.

That's neither arbitrary nor ridiculous, it actually makes a lot of sense.

I will agree with you that often if not always, rules come with a background shady agenda behind them, such as this one being about mass surveillance.

But it is critically important to understand the purpose of things before disregarding them.