Source: Worked in an intelligence battalion for 5 years.
If you live nearby you might even be visiting a possible terrorist for barbeque or beer entirely innocently. I suspect few will be discussing, or have any idea of, their plans for a bank raid.
We may have a lot of data and meta data but we seem to be asking very unintelligent questions worthy of McCarthy / Stasi era paranoia.
Alternatives include conforming to unjust laws, or violating openly and ending up imprisoned. Neither sound like fun. Or, yes, going somewhere else. But in my experience, there's really nowhere to go. So hey.
Mass surveillance is a direct violation of the fourth amendment, outlawing it completely is the only reasonable solution.
It's easy to cite the Fourth Amendment. But it's all in the interpretation. The War on Drugs arguably violates the Bill of Rights in numerous ways. But try telling that to a judge.
And anyway, as I frequently note, the NSA is a military COMSEC organization. And the US is perpetually at war. So the NSA ignores the Constitution and law. At best, it pretends respect.
Ok, without the VPN part.
In the former Soviet Union, there weren't VPNs, Tor and stuff. But there was samizat. And much conversation, fueled by vodka and bad cigarettes. It ended up working well enough. Except that Reagan, Bush and Carter went on to screw Russia so badly that it embraced Putin.
Surveillance doesn't magically generate blackmail material on politicians if they haven't done anything wrong, and politicians have a vastly reduced right to privacy compared to the rest of us.
"Politicians could be blackmailed!" is a weak as hell argument because if they can be blackmailed then they are corrupt and should be exposed.
The problem is what happens to all the rest of us - private citizens who do not wield power and influence, do not write the laws, and as is noted in the OP here, who suffer very real consequences to our lives from being categorized by intelligence systems.
There are a wide range of things that count as dirt. Legal yet scandalous behavior, various social gaffes, past political stances that may not represent their current views, or criminal acts from one of the many "relationships" tracked. All of these things have been used to attack candidates.
>Surveillance doesn't magically generate blackmail material on politicians if they haven't done anything wrong, and politicians have a vastly reduced right to privacy compared to the rest of us.
If we know these organizations have these extreme surveillance capabilities, they largely can magically generate blackmail. The amount of proof needed to generate a scandal is low, and falsifiable.
>The problem is what happens to all the rest of us - private citizens who do not wield power and influence, do not write the laws, and as is noted in the OP here, who suffer very real consequences to our lives from being categorized by intelligence systems
One of those consequences is the hidden destruction of our democracy. As these powers become stronger, we lose our ability to reject them in our political system.
Furthermore, if politicians want power X but only if X can't be used on themselves, then that power can easily be used corruptly.
$politician went with some supporters to a strip club. News at 11.
You think that won't affect the electoral outcome, even if it is perfectly legal? And if it does, that it could not be used in collusion with security forces to preserve an entrenched power?