I'm not well versed on the details of U.S. government surveillance, but is it not the case that collection of phone logs, for instance, does not entail the government directly infringing on or even caring about 99.999999% of the public's private activity? My understanding is that these types of surveillance programs technically exist so that logs can be pulled up retroactively or algorithmically in rare but important cases.

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.