Since you know the ads surveillance Borg so well you are uniquely positioned to understand how to solve the problems it has created for everyone. Spend a lot of time thinking about why your past work doesn't sit right with you and the conditions that caused you to be paid to do it. Then consider what could be changed that would make these conditions slightly better. That will help you find other groups whose work you value or come up with your own ideas to pursue.

There are extremely obvious problems in energy and biotech that everyone wants solved but they are harder to break into with your background. However it's probably not truly that hard to contribute in a software capacity if your horizon is a few years.