Yeah, there's a very real difference between the collection of metadata and actually recording phone conversations and text messages. Both leave a bad taste in my mouth, but conflating the two is dangerous and dishonest.
> Both leave a bad taste in my mouth, but conflating the two is dangerous and dishonest.
Unfortunately that is par for the course here on HN, if you pay attention to the political threads. It so often is just the same political truth-twisting, logic-bending contortions that I often saw applied by the GOP or creationists, where logic becomes subservient to the objective, instead of forming your objective based on logic.
And in this case it's completely needless! Why use propaganda techniques to mislead when the truth is persuasive on its own? I'm not even shocked about collection of metadata per se, but it should not be a secret program run by secret courts issuing secret warrants. If it's important and useful the people will allow it, if not then let us live with that choice too.
