Current governments have used the mass surveillance to go after people for abortions and for being too foreign-seeming (even if here legally). If those don’t affect you, surely you can think of something that the next wave of government officials might be opposed to, which could use a surveillance network to take away from you.
Having laws to prevent abuses doesn’t help when the lawmakers change and can just revoke those laws, while the full infrastructure exists to do whatever they want.
> Red light cameras, for example, strike me as unalloyed good.
This actually makes me think that your post is satire, due to the heavy debate on whether these cameras actually improve safety [0]. Lots of studies that contradict each other on that. I agree we need to prevent the recklessness of drivers, and there is an argument to be made here. But it’s not at all obvious like you imply.
From [0]:
> When the Houston cameras were removed, angle accidents increased by 26 percent. However, all other types of accidents decreased by 18 percent. Approximately one-third of all Houston intersection accidents are angle accidents. This suggests that the program’s drawbacks canceled out its benefits.
> Our study showed no evidence that cameras reduce the total number of accidents. We estimate that total accidents are reduced by a statistically insignificant 3 percent after the cameras are turned off.
> Likewise, there’s no evidence that the camera program reduced the number of traffic-related injuries or the likelihood of incurring an incapacitating injury.
[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/red-light-cameras...