[_praf]

Totally agree its a bit movie-plot-y, but the point of that example is to highlight something that (obviously) violates sanctions rules and would get flagged on a national security scale by governments.

The examples you listed would all be lower priority.

[theamk]

My belief is that people care more about things that affect them directly.

And this means your pro-control statements like "I pay a known enemy of state to fund a terrorist attack" are pretty abstract - do you know anyone who funds terrorists? Why would terrorists use US banks anyway, surely they use gold or drugs or something?

On the other side, your anti-control side ("I buy illegal drugs from a friend for personal use.", "I buy a ticket to a comedy show that makes fun of your government.") is much more relatable - I have friends who I know buy illegal drugs! I go to comedy shows! So despite stakes being much lower, the feelings are much stronger.

So if you want to get balanced view, it's important to keep local, relatable reasons for both sides. "30 emergency rooms were closed due to a ransomware cyber-attack, and government has no way to track the attackers" is a nice example of the locally relatable argument for "control" side. "Scammers stole all of the life savings from someone. Government has no way to get this money back" is another one.