| "...But these still need to be intercepted in the first place, because you don't know in advance which of the 0.01% of records are of interest...." They do not, and the reason why is interesting. In free countries, there is an order to things. This order is important. First there is an event. A person applies for security clearance, there's a robbery, somebody reports a crime, and so on. Second there is an investigation. Based on the nature of the event reported, facts are gathered to determine whether or not the state needs to intervene. More importantly, the people are identified that need intervention. Based on the investigation, sometimes the state might intervene with force, as in when a SWAT team shows up at your door. The order is clear, and necessary. Event > data gathering > investigation > people. We start with an event and end up with people who might be criminals. That's because everybody is guilty of something. It's important to limit the state to only go after people where there is a clear, independent prompt for something to happen, ie, an event. But what if we change it around? What if we collect data all the time? Well then we are no longer limited to having a good and independent reason for taking action. Instead, now we can start with the person and then figure out what they're guilty of until it justifies the action we've already selected. And guess what? Everybody is guilty of something. All we've done is create a machine where we can identify people we don't like, push a button, and then find reasons to put them in jail or apply force to them in other ways. Free countries cannot continue operating in an environment like that. Because we've made the law do our bidding, there is effectively no rule of law. And people are smart enough to figure that out. |