It's a valid point but, is pretty different in its intent from what GP comment is getting at.
This wasn't a result of "let's target this group we've deemed political enemies", it was "we're attempting to enforce this law (mind you, effectively everyone agrees with) via data collection".
I can buy how that's a pretty darn thin line, but, in practice I think it's also true that we haven't seen much evidence of the more shady interpretation that GP's post implies.
I think this example was even worse, because it wasn’t the government asking Google for data about a user, Google went out and proactively offered it (and erased this poor guy’s email and cancelled his phone).
There’s also been plenty of cases where people were charged with a crime on the basis of a warrant to find all phones in a given location at a given time.
The political-dissidents-from-audio-clips sounds a little far fetched, but certainly there have been cases where Alexa recordings were supoenaed and used against their owners. GP was certainly right that companies collecting data about me is a liability for me.
This wasn't a result of "let's target this group we've deemed political enemies", it was "we're attempting to enforce this law (mind you, effectively everyone agrees with) via data collection".
I can buy how that's a pretty darn thin line, but, in practice I think it's also true that we haven't seen much evidence of the more shady interpretation that GP's post implies.