Do you think pervasive spying would have made it more or less likely that the Jeffrey Epstein case made it to the public eye? Running a paedophile ring is not some small thing that is easy to hide. In all the cases I've taken note of (in churches, schools, local clubs, etc) the problem is almost never that the crime is unknown, it is that the perpetrators have too many tools to shield themselves from consequences and discredit the victims. In the future, maybe tools like going through people's internet history or planting fake evidence using their online accounts.

Society shouldn't use surveillance to identify criminals. We'd look back at dragnets to catch runaway slaves or hunt down the homosexuals with horror (as, indeed, we generally do in states that successfully institute mass surveillance to catch criminals). As recently as a few years ago, 'criminals' were people found outside their own homes and places like China were successfully catching them much to the net loss for everyone. There is a strong - indeed, overwhelming - link between places with good privacy, good protection of freedoms and citizens living happy prosperous lives.

The people pushing mass surveillance know all this. It has been bought up every time some bright spark comes up with the idea of rolling out mass surveillance. These people understand the societal consequences that they are ushering in. Too many of them understand what they are doing to pretend they have pure motives. This is empowering the worst of the authoritarians.