The main problem with this question, and the article generally, is that it assumes the State acts with a single intent, as a single (bad) actor. It doesn't. T

The main problem with this question, and the article generally, is that it assumes the State acts with a single intent, as a single (bad) actor. It doesn't. There are too many competing interests - political, bureacratic, targets, self-interest - at play for us to consider it as 'masters in a delusionary nightmare'. If you want to start unpicking the state assemblages of surveillance - those competing, overlapping conglomerations of self-interest and preservation - then you need to look at how we allowed them to come to be in the first place, and acknowledge that the reasons don't just apply in surveillance: state assemblages of surveillance are emanations of capital, and they serve (mainly) to protect capital, not people, so we should do away with any pretence of 'optimal security'.