You have no real problems with the secret police monitoring you? Is that an expression of acceptance to something you cannot control or that you really are ok with it?
We have to accept that we are being spied upon because we have no control over that, but we should always resent and resist it when possible.
Terrorism is quite easy in today's world. By definition terror scares people, hence a strong voter pressure to stop it. This results in a Big Brother society.
The number of stopped terror attacks in the West over the last decade is quite large, that would hardly have happened without spying on the citizens.
Is it worth the security? I don't really know. As long as it is in very stable democracies, it ought to be safe...
>The number of stopped terror attacks in the West over the last decade is
quite large
Bull. Fucking. Crap.
For example, according to this[1] source, there have been not even 50 terror
attacks against America in the last 90 years. And while the amount seems to
have increased recently, this surely has absolutely nothing to do with the US
playing world police and giving more and more people reasons to hate them (not
that this excuses terror attacks, but you get the point).
This whole bullshit is a gigantic pile of FUD and propaganda. There is no
terror threat. There never has been any. At least not more than randomly
getting shot on the street or dying in a car crash caused by a drunk driver. I
don't see people pushing for universal surveillance of the blood alcohol of all
drivers or some other nonsense.
The whole thing is so fucktardedly ridiculous that the FBI regularly invents
terror suspects[2], and arrests them "last minute" to then claim it has "once again
eliminated a threat to national security". Everything's fair game to continue
their bullshit pushes for more surveillance and less civil liberty. And what's
even more enraging: people like you buy it.
Conclusion: No, we don't need surveillance. No, we don't need fed agencies
spying on everyone and everything and no one to keep them in check (who watches
the watchmen?). No, we don't need bullshit laws that further and further
infringe on every human's civil liberties and human rights for no reason but
"um... well... uh... BUT TERRORISM!!!1!1oneoneeleven".
The down votes here are interesting. I don't argue an extreme position, imho?
No one has attempted to argue against my point about active terror threats imply high voter pressure for security.
But maybe the problem is that I'm Swedish.
Traditionally, Swedes trust the state uncritically to do the right thing (I've heard the explanation that the king historically was allied with the lower classes against the nobility).
I thought I was immune to those Swedish attitudes, after e.g. seeing oligopolies (food, building, etc) keeping prices high and hurting both individuals' economy and the country's, without getting any problems from either politicians or media.
But maybe I still have naive reflexes.
Edit: I wish I hadn't gone away for a while, so I could have added this comment while people still were reading and give feedback. :-)
We have to accept that we are being spied upon because we have no control over that, but we should always resent and resist it when possible.