When Germany introduced their ubiquitous wiretap law, they saw the actually cost of introducing such law. The most notable change in peoples behavior was that hot-lines, priests and lawyers started to see fewer phone calls as people reacted to the surveillance. To this then can be concluded that some cases of children being sexually abused, and domestic violence, will continue as a direct result of people being too afraid to use hot-lines or calling the local priest/lawyer for advice.

> It's important to remember that we still have a functioning democracy. If you -- Hacker News reader -- decided to run for congress tomorrow, you might not win, but you won't be killed, sabotaged, or secretly blocked.

To the contrarily, rival political individuals can map, with the help of ubiquitous wiretap, which people are a threat to their power. From that they can redirect police "focus" to either crack down on such threat directly, or any support group they might have. Political figures are commonly the second largest requester for domestic intel, only second to the secret police.