Re:Facebook, WhatsApp Will Have to Share Messages With U.K.?
by swiley on Saturday September 28, 2019 @09:48PM
(#21104459)
The most concerning thing about mass surveillance and mass manipulation isn't the direct impact to some hypothetical enemy of the state (although that is concerning, people in that situation are more or less a lost cause), it's that public discourse and democracy can be pushed around by some small controlling group.
Proper law enforcement (mind the "enforcement" part) can make a neighborhood safe enough so that nobody tries to shoot you and you won't need to wear vests. But in the end of the day, if you are messing with bad people in the bad neighborhood: bulletproof vests are real, laws are not.
And when you are talking about government enforcing the laws that are supposed to forbid uncontrollable government agencies to do what they do: well, government kinda is bad people in the bad neighborhood.