You’d think it’d be enough that we have to pay for car insurance, life insurance, pet insurance, and homeowner’s insurance. But I refuse to pay one penny for your civil liberties insurance.
Where is it mandated that everyone has to have civil liberties? This sounds unconstitutional.
I’m not even sure I’m eligible for civil liberties. The government’s website, Constitution.gov, which is a partisan name, didn’t help. It was really complicated, and took four seconds to load on my phone and didn’t have a single animated GIF. Even worse, the language was confusing. What’s “protection from habeas corpus suspension”? With names like that, it’s like you’re trying to protect me from things I might want later. President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and he rocked an awesome beard—long before Movember.
My generation doesn’t need civil liberties insurance. I’m young, white, college educated, and healthy. The biggest reason I don’t need it is because I haven’t done anything wrong. And I’m not planning on doing anything wrong, now or at any time in the future.
You almost had me with your “accidental imprisonment” clause, but how could I possibly end up in an Uzbek prison, or making license plates at a CIA black site? There’s no possible way anyone could ever confuse me with a lawbreaker. Lawbreakers don’t live in Brooklyn and work as graphic novelists. That’s common knowledge, people.
Your policy suggests I need to be protected from “incorrect interpretation of internet activity.” I have nothing to hide! That tweet about “Freedom from tyrants”? I was arguing about a Nicolas Cage movie. Then there’s my search history. It was nothing more than an innocent search for a bomba, which is a delicious Italian dessert. It’s not my fault the search engine autocorrected it to “bomb.” And my cell phone metadata? I don’t even know what that is. What’s the likelihood that the government, which can’t send my tax refund on time, knows what metadata is, either?
Your coverage on “government data collection” sounds like a scam. My data goes everywhere. My bank has it, my accountant has it, and I’m sure my therapist has it. I’d prefer it if the government had my data—it would be so much easier to back things up that way.
Besides, my data is already being collected by businesses. They use it to personalize and improve my online experience. I’m sure that the video game company needs to collect my latitude and longitude when I’m playing Angry Birds. If pinpointing my location enhances my pig smashing, I’m all for it. Plus, the government is keeping me safe from terrorists who play Angry Birds, which is probably a lot of them, because of the Muslim anti-pork thing.
They say that young people need to get insurance to protect everyone, so that costs stay low. Since when is it my responsibility to make sure my neighbors have affordable civil liberties? When the thugs in jack boots kick down their doors, I’ll be sleeping safely in the house next door with the American flag in the window, a house that will in no way be targeted in the future because of some poorly designed proximity algorithms.
Seriously, this is a government with a drone program that’s so broken it doesn’t target the right people. And look at the disaster with the health care site? What’s the likelihood they could intercept my private data and do anything with it? The civil liberties insurance website uses an example of an Oregon man who was arrested and held illegally by the FBI for a terrorist plot because he was Muslim and his fingerprints were a shaky match to ones that had been sent from Europe by fax. That could never happen.
What? That already happened? It’s not like it’s going to happen again.
So what if somebody happened to misconstrue that my girlfriend and I enjoy running around the house with other couples, wearing nothing but lucha libre masks, attempting to smother each other with Hostess baked goods? That happens in my home, in my personal space, shared only with a few close couples on our private Facebook page.
What could go wrong with that? I mean, it’s a free country, right?