If you’re trying to convince someone to wear a seatbelt, you aren’t going to change his mind by telling him about all the times that seatbelts didn’t do anything for you. This doesn’t mean that seatbelts are useless, it just means that you’re not making a good argument in favor of them. This article implies that “some in the GOP” are wrong to oppose keeping these records and tries to illustrate that point using a case where the records didn’t actually make a difference. That’s just poor rhetoric.