Eli5 why is the government collecting metadata or online information in general a terrible thing?

Question

I understand people will go far lengths to protect their privacy but with the internet once you have a email they probably have a good idea about you already, and unless you are doing something with malicious intent the government probably (hopefully) doesn’t really care, so why is it such a huge thing?

In: 22

Answer 1

Here’s an experiment: If you aren’t concerned about people reading your emails because you have nothing to hide, go to your email right now, make a copy of the last 500 emails or so and respond to my comment with them. If you do not want to do this, ask yourself why. And if you don’t do this, would it be fair for me to assume you’re hiding wrongdoing?