Law enforcement, tasked with catching the baddies, always wants more ability to complete their task: more surveillance, more laws, and more firepower. That's as

Law enforcement, tasked with catching the baddies, always wants more ability to complete their task: more surveillance, more laws, and more firepower. That's as it should be. The problem is the lack of heavy-weight counter-balance, always demanding more privacy, fewer laws, and less firepower. The best we've got is "the status quo" and a few non-profits (that thankfully are punching way above their weight class). Without such a counterbalancing agency, each small gain by law enforcement rarely reverts, so rather than oscillating between a bit too much freedom and a bit too much policing we have an arrow moving us steadily toward a police state.