America in 1860 may have been one of those places and times where most people believed slavery was a good thing: http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm

America in 1860 may have been one of those places and times where most people believed slavery was a good thing: http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm Total Free Population 27,489,561 Total Slave Population 3,953,760 Grand Total 31,443,321 The freemen outnumbered the slaves in all but two states. And in any event, nobody asked the slaves. As for the file being "just" data, so is a picture of a man with his mistress, or an email conversation, or a list of the books you purchased online, or a list of URLs you visited this year. You tell me: Is this all just "data?" Are you good with the FBI/CSIS having all this stuff about you or any other citizen who is not being investigated with cause? I'm not, and furthermore I won't be tricked into some kind of reverse onus where I have to explain why it's a bad thing for the government to have this data just for the sake of having all this data. It's the other way around: The government should have to tell us, the people, why it needs this data. If it can't justify the collection of this data, it shouldn't collect it. The reason why the onus is upon the government to prove why it needs the data and not on us to prove why we're entitled to some privacy is because humans have an unbroken track record for abusing information about each other, and governments even more so. To argue that somehow 2011 it is all going to be different is to argue that this month will be full of Sundays or that pigs have finally taken flight with their new wings.