It seems to me fairly self-evident that actions which chill debate or discussion limit political expression and an informed electorate, thereby fundamentally impinging on democracy. Why then distinguish between 'chilling effects' and an attack on democracy?
Let me frame the thought by giving an example: if I am talking with someone, I might not say a few things because, hey, the TLA might care enough to pull the record and listen in. Or we take care to communicate with GPG or something. It inhibits what we do. We can still vote; our vote actually has meaning; our votes actually change the elected officials, etc. We still can run a socialist candidate (c.f. Kshama Sawant 2013 in Seattle) and they aren't shut down via police action or other hardcore discrimination.
This is in contrast against what it could do: it could be always used to harass and discriminate against those dissenting from the Two Parties and the State. Anyone who said anything would be looked at and actions taken to shut them up and limit the expression and formation of dissent.
While the database of communication could be used against people to significantly disrupt everyone who speaks out, it is not, and in my opinion, it will take a few emergencies like 9/11 to actually alter the mindset of the US to make that acceptable. Of course, people are harassed; some people are okay with that. It doesn't mean there's general acceptance of that, and it doesn't mean everyone is harassed.
Thus I draw the distinction: people self-censoring vs. the heavy hand of an apparatchik forcing change. The first is very immediate and to-hand; it's reality today. The other is possible, possibly even probable given certain courses of events, but fear-mongering is not the best way to go; let's deal with the clear and present threat at hand- chilling of free speech, chilling of dissent, chilling of the business interests of United States citizens, (frankly, these all apply outside the US as well, and hopefully the debate within the US around privacy and data capture also places the operations of TLAs on non-US citizens & non-US soil within the public purview of the United States citizenry via their elected representatives).
Fear does work as a campaign tactic, but the reality is, fear is not something people want to work for. People are willing to work for hope (didn't we all see that in 2008?), and I really would prefer the pro-privacy, pro-4th amendment activists focus on the positives and hope of what we can do rather than performing the traditional stick of the Republicans & Democrats (vote the other way and the free work and the US will END!!!11!oneoneone). It is in hope of being not being tracked against my will, not being monitored in every phone conversation, not being advertised at without my consent that I advocate for these changes to come to pass. It is in hope that I can say thoughts and perform actions online and offline and feel the liberty of not having peeping government Toms and raucous advertisers know anything about me.
So there's my distinction and my spiel. :-)
See, my theory, call me a tinfoil hatter if you will, is that we are on the brink of losing our votes. 1) Collect extensive data on any and all citizens. Any especially politically active citizens will receive extra scrutiny. Ones that are further up in local, state and federal politics will receive even more. This information will be used secretly to ensure that, besides a few outliers who are either allowed to be subversive for the sake of maintaining a smokescreen, all politicians can be controlled. Russell Tice, a prominent NSA whistleblower has alluded to exactly this process occurring under the NSA of today, as it did under J Edgar. He ominously refers to a young man who now resides in a nice white house as one of these who received extra attention. (To me, that explains a whole great deal. And think about it - one of my google searches released to the press would destroy any political career I had, and would be quite enough to turn me into someones puppet, or force me out of politics all together.)
2) With the political market cornered, to an extent, step two begins. Militarise the police. Use infiltration and subversion to delegitimise, split and turn public opinion against activists, whilst also using techniques to track and monitor the most influential ones. Again, there is evidence that the NYPD and other departments have undertaken actions like this. There is a wealth of technology to aid them - tracing FB profiles, using false cell towers, facial recognition tech combined with surveillance cameras, etc. This will have a chilling effect, as mentioned above - acitivists movements are accused of vandalism, of violence, suspect motives, etc, and are also brutally put down. Public sympathy fades, and the support for and involvement in protesting and other forms of activism begin to wither.
Congratulations, you have the makings of a great authoritarian state!
Note that nothing I referred to above is beyond the realms of possibility - in fact, please point to anything I said and I will try to dig up some solid evidence for it.
Quite simply, we are going past the point of no return. It will become progressively more difficult to have an impact on the political apparatus. At some point, it will come down to one thing: a fight.a very bloody fight. it happens every few centuries when an existing political and social order becomes stagnant, and the citizenry are pushed out of fear, hunger or anger to act. When we the people have nothing to lose, that is when things will change. It may not happen tomorrow, or next year, or next decade, maybe not even this century, but it will happen.
EVERYONE has dirt on them that they wouldn't want a hypocritically moralistic press to publish to the world with the worst possible spin on.
Either Presidents get access to some scary ass shit that makes them all immediately move hard to the right when they get in office or someone shows them their phone calls to their dealer in 1986 or the abortion clinic in 1997 or an email to an illicit lover or a gay experience at college or or or.
Occams razor would suggest that with the overwhelming superiority of the USA militarily and economically that there isn't some massive scary vulnerability that requires the maintenance and expansion of the security state therefore the second posit is more likely. Dirt. Lots of it. J Edgar Hoover with access to all of your inner most thoughts. That's what a google search is after all.
How many times have you heard something or read something and done a quick google, something that out of context would be dreadful? I for example ended up following some links from Reddit and ended up on a white nationalist site (the post was taking the piss out of their idiocy), I immediately clicked away from it thinking 'fuck, if the govt were to see that' (I am on a work visa here and have essentially no 4th amendment rights when seeking entry), pretty chilling already.
Now imagine being a politician. 'Candidate goes on storefront!' But I was just curious, following an internet thread...yeah right. Racist.
/end ramble.
Remember, a great number of people have to be on board with restricting the TLAs in order for effective change to happen at the national level. While YOU might not want monitoring of influential activists, others might (and probably do). So your possible future might be a wanted one for segments of the population. Confine yourselves to facts and positives and you have a stronger base to work with rather than pushing fear (no one wants fear, everyone wants hope).
Understand that I'm not denying your hypothetical future. I'm simply convinced that a narrative not focused on "what-ifs" and fear will be more successful at winning support.
I would argue that imagining what-if scenarios and disseminating that fear are the only way to prevent us from crossing the threshold where there's no turning back. Waiting for direct evidence of a police state is a losing battle. Just take a look at what a decade of the All-Seeing-NSA-deniers have brought us? Relying on the next Snowden to bring us hard evidence about intelligence activities is a losing proposition.
You didn't see any diret evidence of massive surveillance either. Yet it is quite clear it exists. All that means is you are willing to wear blindfolds. By not preparing yourself for the worst, you simply let it happen.