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Comment by hedora | Hacker News Reader

That argument has been made by repressive regimes to justify all sorts of witch hunts: "Our records say you were friends with John; you should have known he would be branded a subversive traitor. Why didn't you turn him in first?"

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.

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Thank you for your reply. Your argument makes sense to me, however I am still having some difficulty understanding how ultimately surveillance is anything but negligible in aiding law enforcement to oppress U.S. citizens - compared to the government's already existing enormously superior weaponry. IF the government were out to get me, I can't imagine how I could stop them, even if they had only basic information about me. UNLESS I am a criminal mastermind, in which case it seems like the government would NEED information about me to stop me, which would probably be a good thing? I dunno... do you at least see where I'm coming from? I haven't formed a concrete opinion about it all, and I am a student of cyber-security. Presently considering all points of view.

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?

The ideas I presented are from a long time ago. Arguably, modern military technology made grass roots revolutions impossible in first world countries (or will soon, given drones, etc).

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.

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