Is surveillance always bad? From the reactions here, you'd think it is. But that attitude will keep forcing surveillance underground. Any policy discussions are

Is surveillance always bad? From the reactions here, you'd think it is. But that attitude will keep forcing surveillance underground. Any policy discussions are going to be: "We need to watch people." "They will hate that." "Let's not tell them we're doing it then." It would be far better to have it out in the open, transparent. That's only going to happen if we are willing to talk about it constructively. And although I'd rather not have my metadata collected by the NSA, I also don't want to be knifed while I walk home, and it sounds like that second scenario is what this surveillance system is trying to prevent. *edit: formatting