[jancsika]

> [...] or did show you near a protest, family planning clinic, etc.

I agree that people relying on the argument from gov't ineptitude are making a gamble-- and one that history of technological development tells us is incredibly risky.

But doesn't the fundamental danger depend on those activities or locations being viewed by society as suspicious in the first place? Also, doesn't the contingent danger of wide-surveillance thrive mainly off of the asymmetry of access to its inferences? Isn't an activist who speaks publicly about their struggle with bipolar disorder and builds a strong support group inherently safer than one who only tells a wide-net surveillance database?

[acdha]

The problem is that in the cases where you'd most want to, you never know what could be a problem until it's too late. Say in 2016 you went to a gay friend's wedding. No problem if that end up in some vast anti-terrorism archive of social media images since it's perfectly normal but … what about a decade later when President Pence of the Republic of Gilead declares that homosexuality is a crime against God and suspected sympathisers should have rights like employment curtailed?

That's an intentionally unlikely example but it's not like there aren't plenty of historical examples of this – e.g. imagine how much more dangerous HUAC[1] would have been if they'd been able to mine every picture on Facebook using facial recognition software to build a list of everyone who'd ever been in the scene with a targeted person.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities...