Compare to: what large tigers have attacked me since mass surveillance began?
However, this article does the reverse. And claim that it is useless because it hasn't prevented something that never happened in the first place.
My seat-belt never saved my life but I put it on anyway.
0 for 0 isn't good information in either direction.
Then again I'd probably guess that my seat-belt is significantly more effective at saving my life.
Plus most of the ability for abuse exists even without a system in place. If the government wants to discredit me they can make up evidence and get a warrant. Or they can just do warrantless wiretapping.
The ability to spy on all citizens exist whether it's used or not. That goes triple for metadata that companies keep anyway. As long as Google is spying, that information is ripe for being taken by government.
There is still a risk that a non-rouge part of government could use mass surveillance for shitty purposes. Like hunting down jews, homosexuals, civil rights activists, etc. But the whole government would have to break bad. And they could reinstate a mass surveillance apparatus in a couple months anyway.
I'm not really convinced that using the NSA to spy on suspected terrorists, spies, and drug cartels is really an significant risk to our freedom and safety in general.
Is it a black swan event if it was attempted 8 years earlier (WTC 1993, 6 dead, 1000 injured)?