[JohnBooty]

I think some of the same (100% valid and necessary) questions might have been raised in the past about identification cards, fingerprints, handwriting analysis, etc.

I think the bottom line is how the tech is employed.

Are we tracking ordinary citizens en masse, for some potential future use? Are we tracking folks just because they're dissenting/protesting? We would probably all agree those uses are bad. Very bad.

I'm not terribly worried about using them to identify specific criminal targets. Put another way, how absurd would it be for us to have perfectly clear video of people committing specific criminal acts, and not use the available technology to identify them?

On a related note, the (lack of) opsec displayed by the Capitol rioters is... really something. These people were happily mugging for the cameras, sans masks. I'm not sure if it was stupidity or entitlement. The easy and snarky answer would be "stupidity" but there were clearly intelligent folk among them or at least people that should know to cover their tracks better: lawyers, military and police officers.

I think there was a rather stunning sense of entitlement there: a lot of these folks honestly cannot believe they're being charged with crimes. As if they expected to be greeted as liberators!

God help us if and when they sharpen up their tactics. The sickening feeling in my stomach tells me that this was a hell of a practice run.