Well, since it's apparently okay to block things just because you don't like them, sure.

You can request to get around the filters, after all, so why not block other things as well? Religious websites would be a decent start. What's wrong...? Suddenly blocking things by default is bad because you don't like what's being blocked this time around?

But I still feel it's important to emphasize that freedom is more important than safety even if the safety we're being offered is not genuine. People do need to accept that this is not a perfect world, and they need to stop giving away freedoms so they can feel safe.

Yeah, apparently it's crazy to think that the people in the government aren't perfect beings who can never make mistakes or abuse their powers. It's crazy until... the government abuses its power in a profound way, and then people become enraged (for a time, anyway, and then later they'll repeat the same mistakes)! Of course, thinking about how something could turn out before it happens is a slippery slope fallacy (according to some people, anyway).

Thinking about the future is bad.

There is no irony here.

A frightening number of people seem to have a 'It's okay if it saves lives!' mentality. We're supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but supporters of this sort of nonsense never got the memo.

It's nice to see other people who actually care about privacy and freedom. Comments like yours are definitely helpful, and I only wish that cold fjord fellow would come around.

Are you really so selfish that you don't care about people other than yourself? "Wow, the government is abusing that guy over there! Good thing it's not me!" It's perfectly possible for the government to abuse only some people (and that's exactly what happens when you give the government overreacting powers) but not others, but the fact that it's not you or I who would get abused absolutely does not make the abuses okay.

Get some perspective, government cheerleader.

But what if they're neither of those things?

Ah, the catch-all argument that the government loves using so they can feel justified in doing just about anything they want with regards to such matters. That said, the constitution does say "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," so if that's not happening, something is indeed wrong.

That part just seems like a straw man.

Actually, copyright infringement causes no real losses; all it does is cause someone to not gain something, and even that is not certain. Yes, it is not even certain that copyright infringement causes someone to not gain money, and that is because it is also not certain that the person would have purchased the product if he/she could not download it.

Because secret programs where data is collected on just about everyone would still be bad with encryption and such. The data should simply never be collected to begin with unless they have probable cause, and in that case, only on the actual targets.

A grand majority of them. Many of them even accept constitutional violations if it's to keep us safe from bogeymen and keep voting for the same two parties over and over. If voting doesn't make a difference (as you seem to imply), then they wouldn't bother doing it. The reason they keep voting for the same two parties over and over is because they're easily-manipulated imbeciles.

No, I mean you take everything I say quite literally and then attack the arguments that you feel I made thanks to your literal interpretations.

As for opening mail and such... no, I don't think that's okay to do without a warrant, war or no. The fact that Benjamen Franklin did it doesn't make it okay.

That's the sort of thing I meant by pedantry. You also took my post to mean that surveillance is never okay under any circumstances, and that's obvious just not what I meant.

Interesting straw men you have there. I also see you enjoy being pedantic to make it seem as if you have a point, but sadly, you do not.