So... I stand corrected on your age. My apologies. However... you seemed to be dealing with consumer data... not private data. I'd be curious if there was ever any "non-negative" data that moved up above your pay grade.
On top of that... your tenure with the Gvt. was pre 9/11, pre Iraqi war, pre Isis, pre Iran nuclear deal, pre MS13... etc. etc. etc. It's a different world today... with different threats and agendas... than 20+ years ago.
Give me one recent example of when an American's data was used maliciously by the government.
I never exactly said that the data was being used maliciously... just that we were being monitored. But ... since you brought it up... this is recent.
https://beta-washingtonpost-com.cdn...errer=https://www.google.com&_tf=From %1$s
Continuing... if you were to do some research... there was a somewhat recent time when data was used maliciously against U.S. citizens that were considered "subversives"... during the 1960's.
What about the Experian data breach??? While most likely not perpetrated by our government... it was still against American citizens. The more data collected on individuals... the more data to be hacked and used maliciously.
My grandparents generation trusted the government. My parents generation... not so much. Me??? Somewhat... but with a guarded mind and a watchful eye.
Thanks to the founding fathers of this country... I enjoy certain freedoms, rights, and civil liberties. However... due to a major cultural shift in ideologies in this country, (that started in the 60's), those freedoms, rights, and liberties are being threatened. If the wrong people enter the political arena... they could use any collected data... against ANY U.S. citizen maliciously... to determine what rights need, (in their eyes), need to be taken away.
A little study on Socialistic countries, (including Democratic Socialistic countries), shows this to be true. It's not about "what ifs"... but about "who ifs" and "whens".
The government is out there spending billions of dollars to harvest, store, manipulate data for no reason.
You just keep on believing that. In the mean time I'll keep being thankful that they are watching for invading external threats... while hoping that they don't use that data to take away what the founding fathers have tried to assure for many generations after me.