Every person in every civilization has made the trade off between liberty and security to some degree. All but the staunchest anarchists are for some laws.
Discussion over where the grey areas end are valid; and I'd argue more useful then assuming what ever is currently acceptable to any given person must be the optimal tradeoff.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
So, the liberty must be "essential" and the safety must be "temporary" - and the classification as such would be the essence of the argument. It's not so much a statement of principle as it is invective.
And in context, it's actually about the liberties of a legislative assembly [1] rather than those of the individual, but that's a minor detail.
1. https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said
As I see it, the issue is not that these websites are being used by law enforcement, but that there is not formalized rules for doing so, nor is there transparency in how they are used by law enforcement. An example of a formal rule would be a warrant requirement.
The problem is that police don't actually make anyone safer, they simply create order for the state after something has occurred. I have never once called the police and had them actually do a single thing to help or solve the problem I was facing. Yet I can recount countless instances of them harassing me for nothing? Why is that? Maybe the fundamental notion of 'secure vs liberty' is flawed if we aren't actually provided with more security.
After they caught the guy, I found out that those guys showed up due to a DNA match against subsequent violent crimes, for which we were the only victims who knew his identity. Soon after the cops re-victimized us they put out a media alert that quickly resulted in someone turning him in. It was two more months before anyone told us they'd caught him. Two. Friggin. Months. Of continuing to worry that this criminal might make good on their threats of doing further harm.
Seriously, I can't imagine many people reading this have lived for months under that level of stress and fear.
Fuck the police.