I've seen a bunch of TV shows (police procedurals, etc.) in which the heroes matter-of-factly use surveillance infrastructure to fight bad guys. There are occasionally some in which the surveillance technology is used against the heroes, but even in some of those, the heroes tend to somehow get access to the infrastructure, and use it to turn the tables.

Before surveillance was a thing, a variation that was ordinary in TV shows was for the heroes to break very important rules/principles they were sworn to uphold. For example, roughing up suspect, or even expressly denying them some procedural right gratuitously, almost as if the show was trying to condition people that those rights aren't actually rights for some other kind of people.

The rules were in the way, and the heroes cared and were tough, and did what needed to be done, to fight the bad thing.

It seems a dangerous idea, in a society based on people buying into admirable rights and responsibilities, but from what I've seen even casually and anecdotally (as a techie, not a humanities researcher or social scientist), the idea seems to have been drip-fed for most/all of our lives. So long, I couldn't guess whether it was an idea that already resonated strongly with people, and media just pandered to that, or it was planted/nurtured by media.

This famous speech starts later in the progression towards a much worse situation, but seems like it might be relevant: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_..."

There is a 1998 Will Smith movie, "Enemy of the State", which I love - it's somewhere between good and "so bad it's good".

It always seemed incredibly fanciful and far-fetched - and then Snowden and Trump happened. It turns out the movie was just slightly ahead of its time.

The technology was not very fanciful if at all. If you think that movie was ahead of its time in terms of exhibiting what was possible, then might I suggest Three Days of the Condor (1975), and of course the ever popular Sneakers (1992). The former is far more fascinating given its age, although I suspect less so for someone who was in the middle of their computer science/computer engineering/signals intelligence/cryptanalysis career during that era.

The things that governments are capable of doing are rarely secret. They leak out over time, and you'll see them portrayed in niche culture long before they become undeniable public knowledge. For example, off the top of my head, the satellite photos published amidst the 1998 missile strike of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factor...) are the types of evidence that inform the private sector, including authors and screenwriters. I'm sure similar photos and descriptions were publicly available much earlier than that, so the generic ability to track people on rooftops via satellite (notwithstanding all the little gotchas that aren't fit for storytelling) was more than plausible at that point, especially considering that then as now the military doesn't typically release material that discloses their best capabilities.

I used to have a link to a pre-9/11, accidental admission in a magazine interview by a general about the Navy's ability to tap undersea fiber optic cables. Though at that point I think it was already assumed the U.S. performed such missions--certainly by Russia and China, but even among intelligence geeks--which is probably why he didn't think much of the comment. (IIRC, the topic was a submarine designed for tapping undersea cable, though at that time it was only "public knowledge" that it could tap traditional copper cables, not fiber optic. He impliedly--only barely shy of explicitly--admitted that it also tapped fiber optic cables.)

What's fanciful is the degree and extent of corruption assumed in these narratives. People seem to think it's more plausible simply because of the true-to-life character of the technological portrayals. But NEVER forget that the principal aim of movies is to elicit strong emotions by leveraging common fears[1] and desires, suspending disbelief by deftly mixing fiction with non-fiction. And I don't mean to preach; it's definitely a life-long struggle for everyone to differentiate culturally constructed narratives from reality.

[1] E.g. Big Brother, the particularized fear of powerlessness that comes when mixing it with political cynicism.

Corollary: When a suspect or defendant is freed because there is no actual proof (technical evidence), or above all when evidence is disallowed because their rights have been violated, that's called “a (mere) technicality”.

Intentional or not, very very likely to condition the audience into regarding civil rights and rules of evidence as “mere” anything. Goes back to at least _Hill Street Blues_ and _Baretta,_ probably _Kojak_ too. Likely much farther than that. (Though _Columbo_ didn't display this attitude, at least not as flagrantly, IIRC?)

Oh for sure. A modern story like this is The Boys where Butcher pursues his vision of justice to no end. To a man who seeks to right a deep wrong this seems prudent within the context of a fantasmal story about the plight of super heroes into super villains. I've debated with a number of people whether Butcher is an anti-hero and I've found most people don't think so. The jurisprudence of his actions largely boiled down to, "He was trying to do the right thing, right? Sometimes you must disregard the system to attain real justice. That doesn't bother me as much as it bothers you." My takeaway was that we no longer fear the King Henry archetype, whereby an individual dawns the mask of judge, jury, and executioner. As long as justice is perceivably served then the means may not be laudable but they are passable. I don't know if this translates into how people view the real world and interpret real life events, but if it does then it's quite curious.

"The Boys" is entertaining, but problematic in a number of respects. Somehow CIA are portrayed as opposed to capricious unaccountable extralegal domination of society by powerful cronyist authoritarians? Come again? In scores of nations, including USA, they have taken the opposite side. "The Boys" is more explicit than e.g. "Black Panther" in its CIA whitewashing, although that movie was probably more insulting to the memories of numerous dead Africans.

One salient difference between the characters of Butcher and "King Henry" (this is not specific) is that Henry is a king and Butcher is a somewhat violent homeless dude. One deeply suspects suggestions to see them as somehow the same.

I was talking less about the institution and more about the intersections of convictions and methods. Now take that and examine how that intersection influences whether we view Butcher as a hero or anti-hero.

That's a pretty fine line. Butcher isn't the protagonist anyway, which is good because he's the weakest aspect of the story. He hurtles from one situation to another, bringing no resources of his own other than a generalized ill humor. Some CIA bureaucrat bails him out today, a long-lost aunt cheerfully abides the total destruction of her neighborhood tomorrow, a rando schlub turns into the James Bond/MacGuyver hybrid he needs next week. Plot armor is not meant for deuteragonists; Butcher should definitely have been killed off sometime in second season.

Sorry, what? I do not know how you can consider Butcher not a protagonist.

Hughie is the protagonist. The viewer and nearly every other character relate to him and his actions. Butcher OTOH is a violent inconsiderate weirdo who is hated by everyone, including his parents. (He is barely tolerated by those he has dragooned onto his "team".) Butcher was convenient for getting the action started but after he transitioned from "mysterious stranger" to "surrogate father" to "everyone hates this asshole", his role would have been better filled by others on the team.

It would be a considerably more "experimental" program if a character like Butcher were the actual protagonist.

> So long, I couldn't guess whether it was an idea that already resonated strongly with people, and media just pandered to that, or it was planted/nurtured by media.

As evidence in favor of the latter possibility, note that we have long provided government/military funding and other resources for the production of media that gives the military and "intelligence services" editorial control:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-entertainment_complex

I can totally see the argument that since the technology is set up to collect the data anyhow (at least for billing and troubleshooting) then better make use of them.