If you want people to interpret you precisely, you have to be precise.
Right, I'll be sure to be a pedantic asshole the next time you say something that isn't 100% precise. Or you could learn to understand simple human language.
And if you find such a slip-up I'll at least acknowledge I was unclear.
Considering the pathetic nature of the one attempt you make in this post I'm not holding my breathe.
and you're 100% positive their response to a massive database of trivial tweets would be to freak the fuck out?
You've revealed your true colors by trivializing the situation. This so-called "metadata" (which is just data) could've been used to find Paul Revere. When you have rights groups all over up in arms about this because the government is unconstitutionally gathering everyone's data, you know there is a problem. This is no less than a mass violation of people's fundamental liberties, and you are an authoritarian to the core to even suggest otherwise.
You know what else right's groups were up in arms about? Reconstruction. Their attempt to increase freedom by decreasing the authority of the Feds ended up turning most of the South into a dystopian hellscape for nearly a century, during which the anti-authoritarian state governments use anti-authoritarian rhetoric to allow private citizens to ethnically cleanse their territory of black people. Note that in a couple of states (SC and either AL or MS) the majority of voters were black during Reconstruction, so it was not easy for the white minority to take over.
That's the thing that makes protecting freedom very complicated in the US, the number one biggest threat to freedom in these united states is not the official authority of the Feds, it's the totally unofficial authority of your next door neighbor, his Gatt, and his 15 best friends.
Oh, and it's not just tweets, you ignorant fucking fool. There, you weren't 100% precise and didn't describe all the sorts of data they're collecting. Should've been more precise, idiot.
So you're demanding that everyone assume a paean to anarchy isn't a paean to anarchy because anarchists don't exist, but a simplification of a complex database topic, which you brought up without explaining which mass surveillance you were trying to oppose, is complete BS.
Whatever you say. I shouldn't have said that it's a database of trivial tweets, I should have assumed that you meant all electronic monitoring of anyone, including the Russian Air Force.
Now, since you've made which database we're talking about a key part of your argument, precisely which database are we talking about.
So they set up a totally new level of government, specifically giving it the power to create the very first massive database of every American (aka: the Census)
You're bullshitting by comparing the Census to mass surveillance of people's communications.
You realize most American Jews put their ethnicity on the Census in some form -- it isn't asked directly, but quite a few people will write in Israeli, Hebrew, Yiddish, etc. on their census forms when it asks for ethnic background. It's also got income information, social security numbers, all kinds of sensitive information. The Census list is actually the only Federal mass database that's ever been abused -- it was used to find Japanese folks to round up in '42. That took a special act of Congress, an Executive Order from the President, and special orders written by the Army's West Coast commander.
Note that to my knowledge, no authoritarian regime has ever been able to abuse any database of communications. It's much easier for them to go around asking people whether their neighbors are Jewish, then set up a Jew-list in the capital based on an algorithm. After all, if you're actually going to expel/murder/etc. all the Jews you'll need an actual human being in their neighborhood anyway, and if your algorithm gets something wrong (ie: it doesn't realize that a prominent vegetarian Adventist does not eat pork and never works on Saturday) you've got a huge political problem.
I did. Its spirit clearly forbids mass surveillance. I would suggest you read the actual amendment, but you read everything through authoritarian goggles.
Also, the founders were not the be-all end-all, and I didn't try to make it seem like that; they violated the constitution as well. I speak of the constitution's spirit, and gave more arguments than just "The founders would've disagreed," which I still believe.
I've read it. Probably a lot closer then you have.
The problem with using the "spirit" of a document in a legal setting is that nobody agrees on the spirit. You're convinced the Fourth was intended to establish a very strong right to personal privacy. I'm convinced it wasn't.
Therefore to break the impasse we have to go to the text. And in the text it says you're free from unreasonable searches and seizures on your person or property (extended by the Courts, reasonably IMO, to electronic properties), unless they get a warrant. It does not apply to the President's Commander-in-Chief powers, probably because those powers are limited by custom to certain extreme circumstances. It doesn't put any explicit limits on their non Search//Seizure data-gathering (ie: if Congress had the money they could have hired somebody to stand on every street-corner recording illicit affairs) at all.