[billiam]

I'm sorry, I just don't follow this slippery slope argument. We have lots of examples of the government abusing their use of online information. For the haves, we have the still-minor indignities of the no-fly list and targeting certain political stripes for IRS audits. For the have-nots, it is terrorism fusion data centers, predatory civil forfeiture and, jeez, a lot of the criminal justice system. So that world does exist now.

Many of these excesses have been driven by "limiting the size of government" by defunding local governments and relying on private information brokers (license plate readers, etc), rather than passing better laws.

[imgabe]

The things you've mentioned are all generally Bad Things and things that we should be fighting to stop. Fighting to obscure your location information and even protect your privacy in general doesn't stop any of the things you mentioned if you believe the government is acting in bad faith.

[seanflyon]

It mitigates the risk. Someone cannot do bad things with your location information if they do not have your location information.

[imgabe]

I think it is naive to think that a bad actor who intends you harm will be stopped or even slowed down by the fact that there isn't a log of every location you've visited.

[seanflyon]

I think that that is a ridiculous statement. Of course giving a bad actor more opportunity to act badly increases the risk.

[imgabe]

A threat to your safety or your freedom needs to be dealt with directly by eliminating it, not hiding from it. If you're envisioning a bad actor with the resources to compile and analyze a comprehensive log of your location, the simple fact that you use service A instead of service B is not going to do a thing to stop them if they're out to get you. You have far bigger problems on your hands.

[seanflyon]

What about a potential threat? You are not allowed to "eliminate" those. Maybe just don't give that potential threat more power.

[Guvante]

> We have lots of examples of the government abusing their use of online information.

That isn't what he said. He said that if the government is going to forge information, then the availability of location information is not necessary nor useful for that task.

[mirkules]

It looks like someone is systematically downvoting rational arguments in this thread without explanation, yours among them..