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?
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In addition to the extreme 1984 “get disappeared and reeducated” scenarios people have mentioned (which is still quite common in many places in the world) there are also a lot of psychological tactics used to discredit people.
For instance, when a viral video surfaces of someone being abused/killed by police, police departments will immediately look to police records of the victim to discredit them. They’ll point out that George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, etc. were criminals and some people will actually take the bait and basically say that they were bad people and therefore deserved what they got.
Another instance would be to look at COINTELPRO. While the FBI did in some cases straight up assassinate influential people (Fred Hampton comes to mind) they also ran an incredible disinformation campaign against the Black Panthers, anti-Vietnam protestors, socialists, and labor movements in order to sway public opinion and to keep these groups from achieving a critical mass.
Often when one person is involved in something unsavory, they are used as an example to discredit the whole. For instance, if one member of the Black Panthers was a pedophile, the FBI would leak and publicize that information and try to discredit the entire Black Panther party on that singular premise. While this ultimately speaks to a greater issue (people should not be so easily manipulated) it’s nonetheless true that collecting personal information can and will be weaponized.
Or if you really want an ELI5 answer: Why not use the same logic to argue that police should just have a key to your door and come and go periodically to make sure everything is okay? The police say they won’t steal anything and if you’re not doing anything wrong then nothing bad will happen to you.
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