[bryananderson]

History shows us that the risk of the state being co-opted by killers is non-negligible. We can try to prevent authoritarian elements from gaining power, but don’t you think the Dutch in the 1930s felt the same?

We need to be very careful what sort of tools we make available to future iterations of the state, rather than thinking in terms of how much we trust the current iteration (“mass surveillance doesn’t bother me because it’s Obama and I trust him”).

We would like for a benevolent state to have the tools to carry out the services we enjoy, including security, but we should try not to give them too many things that could become effective totalitarian implements at the flip of a switch.

The mass surveillance apparatus is exactly such a thing.

[Tyrek]

How does this play into how we perceive security threats? As far as I understand it, the general model to reduce threats to any system is to create bottlenecks (reduce attach surface) where you can focus the majority of your countermeasures. Is it at least not a valid consideration that one model of society/government effectively forces a bottleneck of social/political decisions at the government level in order to head off any issues? Citizens in this model would presumably have a higher level of vested interest in the proper functioning of the government, and therefore have higher involvement.