>>Would I prefer less data collection and stronger privacy protections? Sure. I'd also prefer universal healthcare and a reforms in federal educational funding. But I'm not going to rant and rave about the END OF DEMOCRACY if I don't get those things right now.
The part where your analogy breaks down is that not having universal healthcare or reforms to federal educational funding are not things that infringe on people's freedoms.
Are you kidding me? Not having access to guaranteed-issue health care makes it impossible for many families to start companies and keeps them chained to full-time jobs just so they can be assured that they won't be bankrupted if they get appendicitis.
Sez you. Someone that's in ill-health for lack of affordable medical attention or unable to exploit their academic potential due to financial insecurity is facing considerable restrictions on their freedom. Equally, it can be argued that a Verizon customer whose call metadata ends up in an NSA database is not actually impacted by that data collection unless s/he had a burning urge to start calling 1-800-ALQAEDA.
All that call data could be misused for oppressive purposes. But you haven't offered any evidence that it is, other than your apparent conviction that all government ultimately ends up as tyrannical and oppressive, a conviction which I absolutely do not share.
I don't think keeping the government from seeing information that low-level IT people at AT&T or Facebok can see is, in Ben Franklin's terminology, "essential liberty." Indeed, I'm far more concerned about what kind of protections exist to keep my bank or my credit card company or my health insurance provider from seeing that information (i.e. none).
The part where your analogy breaks down is that not having universal healthcare or reforms to federal educational funding are not things that infringe on people's freedoms.