Let's say the coup had been successful. You could then have been part of a database and become a criminal without changing anything about your life, because the

Let's say the coup had been successful. You could then have been part of a database and become a criminal without changing anything about your life, because the definition of crime changed around you. The reason this tech is dangerous is because we are never safe from a decline in governance. The reason passivity is dangerous is because doing nothing and being blameless is no longer sufficient to escape punishment after such a decline. >From time to time there's a discussion on HN about the "Nothing to Hide Argument" (e.g [1],[2],[3]). On this topic, I feel there's close to a unanimous position on HN that the "nothing to hide argument" is wrong. People mention counterexamples like "are you ok with cameras in your bathroom", "can you share your bank account password with me". They are all strawmen. Let's assume you are right and they are strawmen. What if we take a more innocuous question? Let's say I ask you at what time you shower in the morning. Would you feel comfortable answering? If not, what exactly worries you about the question? Giving the information would not harm you, but there is still that feeling that it ought to be on a strict need-to-know basis, and failing to combat surveillance means as they develop guarantees that this basis will be increasingly ignored. The easier a tool is to use, the more it will be used, and the unintended consequences of that use will multiply.