Realistically, I don't expect to see these programs change much until terrorism ceases to be a force in the world.
I think you're basically implying this, but I think it's worth elaborating: there is no particular reason for terrorism to cease being a force in the world if things stay grossly similar to the way they are today.
Unlike, say, war, which requires state actors to maintain aggression, terrorism requires just one individual with an idea. Even addressing root causes won't eliminate terrorism entirely. Unless people cease to be afraid (perhaps due to improved numeracy / statistical thinking), the threat of terrorism will forever loom.
I disagree with that approach to framing terrorism because attacks are not just random violence, they are responses to the specific actions or perceived actions of individuals and governments. Charlie Hebdo and the various cartoonists that have drawn political comics of Mohammed, have (to my knowledge) all found themselves at the receiving end of terrorist attacks, or at least credible threats that require them to change their way of life. Thus there are now broad topics where we don't actually have the freedom of speech that technically exists on paper.
The Charlie Hebdo attacks are much more targeted (like an assassination), and seem qualitatively different from what people typically think of when terrorism comes to mind.
There is no government without a search warrant, since no government allows privacy against the state's will.
Until you are your own king, you will always have to live under the permission of government.
I am asking because I am intellectually curious. It seems to me that _on average_ people could stand to gain from surveillance and possibly predictive algorithms for crime. I would like to better grasp the other side of the argument.
Stats make this even worse: "Sorry. The computer said we have to lock you up for your own good."
Also, the framers of the US constitution had a deep mistrust of government (they just overthrew the brits!). The right of revolution is something they teach (at least used to teach) in US schools: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution
Tl;dr: If law enforcement is too effective then you can't defend yourself from unjust governments. This is why we have juries and the right to bear arms / form [state in addition to federal] militias.
EDIT: I guess your point is that the surveillance information can be used to /justify/ an attack on a citizen, so that the public accepts it. But somehow I imagine the government could already easily falsify records to do exactly that without deep troves of info?
Dragnet surveillance creates capabilities like "shoot the 1% of people in this city most likely to oppose me." A more effective / socially acceptable version is already being implemented in China. They have a number that measures how good of a citizen you are. As I understand it, it can be used to vet people for all sorts of things (employment, credit, housing, law enforcement targeting, etc).
So, now, if you say something wrong in private, you might end up begging for food on the side of the road.
Of course, the input to the score is secret; presumably it can be adjusted up or down by (abusive?) people in authority.
Even if I am wrong about the details of the Chinese system (maybe it has great checks and balances for all I know), it is easy to see how government agents could abuse such a system.
Giving a government too much access and control seems bad for both the government and the people.
> Until you are your own king, you will always have to live under the permission of government.
My complaint is that a government should exist to facilitate the well being of its people. They should have to operate under the permission of us, not the other way around.
The election of Donald Trump should shatter any illusions that the political establishment has a stranglehold on power.
Pretty much anything can be reasoned in hindsight, and we have to have tools to undo the ratcheting effect that crisis responses have historically had on public policy. It's only through the devaluing of the public interest -- some might say freedom itself has been defined down over the years -- that there is no counterbalance to it being seen as "not a great political move." We have to invent a politics that can justify the tradeoff, and that it's not in existence yet (much), is something that authoritarians know. Heck, I guess we all know it, but there still has to be a way back, because what's the alternative?
Maybe we're about to find out.