It didn't worry me that the NSA had this information on me in a database somewhere, but I would have been very, very worried if somebody I knew personally were to discover that I'm trans (before I was ready to tell them, anyway).
Wouldn't it worry you if being trans was outlawed, either explicitly or in-practice, and this database were used to locate and target you? It's happened multiple times in this country, even in the past century, with much less convenience than it can be done now: communists, equal-rights activists and other activists, Japanese citizens during WWII, and so on. What if a new AIDS-like STD shows up, and in today's fear-mongering political climate the government chooses to round-up and isolate anyone who may be a carrier based on their lifestyle, instead of focusing on treating people who are actually infected?
These things aren't likely, but they're definitely possible, since similar things have happened before. That's why the mass collection of data "just in case" is something we should all be concerned about.
Wouldn't it worry you if being trans was outlawed, either explicitly or in-practice, and this database were used to locate and target you? It's happened multiple times in this country, even in the past century, with much less convenience than it can be done now: communists, equal-rights activists and other activists, Japanese citizens during WWII, and so on. What if a new AIDS-like STD shows up, and in today's fear-mongering political climate the government chooses to round-up and isolate anyone who may be a carrier based on their lifestyle, instead of focusing on treating people who are actually infected?
These things aren't likely, but they're definitely possible, since similar things have happened before. That's why the mass collection of data "just in case" is something we should all be concerned about.