Surrender isn't an option
And suddenly I'm supposed to go to the ramparts because the NSA might know what numbers I placed a phone call to.
"No more!" isn't a good enough reason? The fact that Liberals see the danger is a good reason for you to turn a blind eye to it? Does partisanship trump principles yet again?
I meant my description of the destructive uses of that kind of database as part of my answer to your example of the IRS. The difference is simple: The phone database is good for nothing but fishing expeditions, while the records maintained by the IRS are those justified by implementing the tax code. You may hate the very existence of the tax code, but you have to agree that IRS record-keeping is entirely legal.
Not only isn't Bush's phone record database sanctioned by any law, it goes against a long legal tradition expressed in our Fourth Amendment, that limiting the state's right to arbitrary search and seizure--to engage in fishing expeditions--is crucial to limiting state power. The subsequent twentieth century experience with police states powerfully validates the wisdom of keeping government searches on a very tight leash.
Is national health care really equivalent in your mind to living in Nazi Germany? Is the Deparment of Education really the moral equivalent of the KGB? Are you serious?