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Why is tracking if done by the police in a "slow" way (ie: cops sitting at major intersections or keeping an eye out for a flagged vehicle) OK, but if it is done automatically somehow bad?

Should all of your server logs be manually reviewed by hand for intrusion detection vs. allowing software to do it? You are both trying to track down and also stop criminals...

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It isn't tracking that is bad but suspicionless, ubiquitous tracking.

Your server analogy is badly flawed because it is analogous to your cop/intersection example. A more appropriate analogy would be universal connection/request logging at the ISP level. It's not OK to have all of your society's unencrypted Web requests recorded and correlated by your government. Do you think it's OK? Why? What benefit does it confer to the people?

So is universal tracking of everyone who walks in/out of a gas station / store also bad?

No one cares or looks at the tape of you walking around the store unless there is a reason to do so. Should all passive recording cams also be stopped?

You're still not paying attention to the words I have written. The word you are missing is ubiquitous. It's not about a single location -- it's about all locations.

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