The feds are goading states to improve seat belt enforcement. And it also stands as a prime example of program creep.
In addition, by your own admission stating you work with marketing data and not NSA spy program data, you are in no position to state as fact whether the Federal government is any good at data mining or not.
From what I have seen, government is not very good at it - recall that there were multiple instances in the DC Sniper database of the perp's license plate but no one figured out how to do a
Select Plate, Count(*) from Vehicle_Leads group by Plate Having Count(*) > 2
That would have created a list of plate numbers to run down. And it didn't happen until after the fact.
Heck, government has trouble with all kinds of systems - they couldn't implement new IRS systems even though most of the data has an SSN or TIN attached. I love it when I have numbers like that to work with (I often don't).
Unlike you I don't fear my government, but I do maintain a healthy suspicion.
I don't fear it as long as I can beat it back when it overreaches. Which is what I am doing here.
And accusing me of burying my head in the sand won't mean much either. If you want to suffer paranoia, that's your business.
Please show me where I have done that.