[some_random]

Government surveillance from first world, liberal governments is not necessarily a bad thing. Surveillance by authoritarians focused on suppressing their population and political enemies is a bad thing.

But yeah, I absolutely agree that the NSA et al are less damaging than Google and friends.

[saagarjha]

The reason we like first world, liberal governments is that we can collectively hold them accountable. It’s not clear that we can do so with the NSA.

[homonculus1]

Any government activity conducted in secret is anti-democratic by definition. How can we ever hope to hold an agency accountable for policies that can't legally be disclosed?

[tehlike]

It only takes few years to switch from a liberal government to oppressive one