If democratic self-governance relies on an informed citizenry, Penney wrote, then “surveillance-related chilling effects,” by “deterring people from exercising their rights,” including “…the freedom to read, think, and communicate privately,” are “corrosive to political discourse.” 

  .. “Governments, of course, know this. China.. wants people to self-censor, because it knows it can’t stop everybody. The idea is that if you don’t know where the line is, and the penalty for crossing it is severe, you will stay far away from it.. if your goal is to control a population,” Schneier says, “mass surveillance is awesome.” 

  .. The social challenge now, [Zuboff] says, is to insist on a new social contract.. “We have to create the political context in which privacy can be successfully defended, protected, and affirmed as a human right. Then we’d have a context in which the privacy battles can be won.”