Suppose, in the course of their everyday routing systems, the USPS were tracking the information in question. Pretend it were free to transfer that data to the law enforcement authorities.
Would you have an issue with it, if it were free as part of doing business?
Sure, we can get into a debate about the ethics of surveillance, but as long as there is zero benefit it seems pointless.
As to why it fails, there is simply to many false positives.
I find it useful to examine my opinions from different perspectives, even ones I disagree with, in order to better understand the crux of the issue.
Again, while I personally agree with what you say, I think it's a bit assertive to say "proactive mass surveillance does not work". I know several people who would argue just as strongly that their work is critical to national security.
This is a bit nitpicky on my part, but your statement "as long as there is zero benefit it seems pointless" is a tautology. I think the argument is regarding whether there is zero benefit.
Again, I don't mean to criticize your beliefs; I'm just interested in openly exploring different perspectives to try and understand the situation better.
Sure it does, just not for what it is claimed to by its proponents. The real point of proactive mass surveillance is to perpetuate a culture of mass fear, a chilling effect on free speech and to maintain the socioeconomic status quo; that is, to limit upward mobility and destroy any notion of wealth redistribution before it gets off the ground.
But anyway, despite there not being an active fear for most people, there certainly would be an immediate fear upon receiving word from the IRS, because the tax system is so hopelessly complex that every single filer is almost certainly guilty of violating some law.
obviously the government is just at the beginning of the road and has a lot of work to do. Anyway, the majority of people in the society is just a cattle and are steered easily without any explicit fear. It is the active minority which is need to be put under control.
Before we start making pronouncements about how bad things are today, it's important to understand history so we can put things in context.
State of active fear in everybody is not what it is about. The "benefit" is state when you think twice before you donate to Wikileaks or when you hesitate to voice support for Occupy Wall Street, because they might have been used against you at some point.
It is also the state when those you donated or joined occupy have to be more careful about what they do and say, because they know things said in supposedly private conversations might be twisted against them.
The key issue isn't the potential benefit of mass surveillance in dealing with crimes or potential crimes, but rather its risk to individual privacy and the danger of enabling authoritarian governance.