[headphoneswater]

If this is what it takes to keep us safe, I and most americans are ok with it. We live in dangerous times.

The US has a balanced criminal justice system -- as long as due process is preserved privacy from the state should not be a major issue

[benlivengood]

Current U.S. "due process" includes national security letters and other secret legal requests and secret courts to approve those requests. So there are still some checks and balances but it's less clear that they are working well enough or as intended.

Just look at the transparency reports of major Internet companies; they can report numbers of (certain types of) requests and that's about it. Mass surveillance under seal is not a great trend.

When political parties start advocating for jailing political opponents and treating the supreme court as political office for nominations, I find it harder to trust the current due process.

[numlock86]

How does them reading my messages keep me safe, though?

[headphoneswater]

In that example it's keeping me safe from you

[numlock86]

Ok, let's turn it around and say they would keep me safe from you. Why would they? What's their motivation to keep ME save from YOU? Are you even a threat? Am I a threat? And would a real threat even be caught by this system?

[wizzwizz4]

> if it's not we have bigger problems anyway

Really, we shouldn't do anything; we have the bigger problem of the eventual heat death of the universe.

Take into account not only the size of the problem, but how easy it is to do something about it.