[mzajc]

Another argument I hear often is that "they have no reason to surveil boring ordinary individuals." Sure nobody might have bothered to look into your private exchanges past aggregable metadata until half a decade or so ago, but with recent advancements in LLMs it takes mere moments to summarize or search through large batches of messages.

[Cthulhu_]

This can quickly evoke Godwin's law by stating jews living in europe (and the US) were boring ordinary individuals, until they weren't. Likewise, currently in Europe there's been an anti-muslim (boring, ordinary individuals) sentiment, where if certain people / factions gain enough power, they will be targeted - insofar as they aren't already.

[majorchord]

Privacy is not related to genocide.

[machine_coffee]

>"they have no reason to surveil boring ordinary individuals."

Tell that to Parsons, Winston Smith's loyal to the Party neighbour who's betrayed by his own child. If surveillance is allowed to become pervasive enough, nobody is safe.

[majorchord]

> boring ordinary individuals

"Ah yes, we can see that boring Johnny goes to Starbucks every Tuesday at 9am, nobody will believe the crime we're about to pin on them! Thanks to 1984 Incorporated for giving us all their data about him to make it look like the perfect crime."

[trod123]

Yeah it is a heavily flawed argument too. You really can't have a rational argument where someone accepts falsehoods as legitimate. Those people are inherently blind.

The people who were massacred at Hue would likely attest to the falsity of that fact if they had somehow survived.

The general story is the VC (communists) took Hue during Vietnam and their leadership had information that had been collected by the Russians on who spoke with Americans as dossiers.

Once they took Hue, they went door to door clipboards in hand and killed every single family that had an American connection.

Even today, the death estimate is not solid as they burned a lot of bodies before a count could be determined after-the-fact.

That massacre largely wouldn't have been possible, or as targeted without information gathering done beforehand. Any covert information gathering is an openly hostile intention and act. Its a necessary pre-requisite for any successful attack on your person.