By comparison wearing masks to slow down infection rates of viruses/diseases that spread via nose/mouth secretions has centuries of evidence backing it up and the government doesn't really gain anything by enforcing the use of masks in places like supermarkets. Maybe it can artificially increase demand to benefit some mask manufacturers but that's it.
Do you still think it's hypocrisy?
If you sit long enough you can come up with a potential abuse for any government law or idea. Just as is done with mass-surveillance. What we don't do is sit down and come up with extraordinary ways and means for us to use powerful tools/ideas/solutions such as surveillance in a responsible and safeguarded manner that is not exploitable by bad individuals in government, or bad governments themselves.
So they can fine them? There are already hundreds of offenses that can be used for that purpose and that can actually land you in jail.
> the negative social aspect of creating laws that have neighbors secretly reporting each-other for this?
Is that really happening? There is no special incentive for reporting people for not wearing masks.
> Or the potential for child-traffickers to gag + hide the gag with a mask while they're busy engaging in trafficking?
They could already do that, wearing masks was already legal.
> If you sit long enough you can come up with a potential abuse for any government law or idea. Just as is done with mass-surveillance.
False equivalence, the potential abuses from mass-surveillance are much more dangerous.
Freedom of speech is another matter.
People that say government can or should impose/strongly-suggest/mandate mask wearing to protect overall population. Essentially the pro-mask wearing individuals.
Individuals that believe that we need end-to-end encryption, and that we can't have government watching our emails, tracking our movements, doing facial recognition, profiling, etc to stop violence.
In both cases, one could argue, the solutions being pushed-back against can effectively stop their respective problems. E.g. large scale big-brother surveillance of all individuals could effectively reduce crime to near zero. Just as 100% large scale government lockdowns/SIP and mask-orders can stop the spread of an epidemic.
Obviously I'm generalizing to try draw a comparison and point out the hypocrisy. Both of the problems require a suspension of some set of rights for "the greater good", yet we somehow balk at one (surveillance, facial recognition, centralized DBs, etc) whilst applauding and being offended when people question the other (mask wearing, SIP laws, social distancing, etc).
It's probably time that we decide as a society what we want instead of incessantly debating back and forth with contradictory requirements and expectations we impose on our governments.