You can't trust unaccountable authority!

You can't hold government accountable when it uses secretive government organizations. If you don't know who did what within an organization, there is no accountability. Without accountability, how can there be any effective deterrence against unethical, immoral or illegal behavior? They can just get away with it while the leaders of the organizations feign ignorance and/or incompetence. We are trusting that there will be no corruption of this secret power that we tacitly consent to give to our governments. If you think government is squeaky clean in its hidden places, look up the history of the CIA in relation to the third world, post WW2. They've replaced democracies with dictatorships on behalf of American business interests.

Don't we realize how hard it could be to take this kind of domestic mass surveillance power away from our governments later?

It's time we face our fears and ask ourselves the hard questions.

Do we feel more threatened by acts of terrorism than we feel threatened by a virtually inescapable surveillance system that temps aspiring tyrants to use it to refashion society more to their own liking? If you don't think that could happen to your country, then I suggest you read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Why did the founders of the USA feel so concerned about the possibility of tyranny that they restricted government power so thoroughly? Also, what is the value in living free vs living like a tool, like a rod in a fascii, being harnessed possibly against your will toward fulfilling someone else's ambitious dream?

I'm not saying tyranny is definitely going to happen, but that we are building a solid framework for it that aspiring tyrants would find extremely utilitarian in refashioning public perception.

Communication is essential in a democracy and if you don't feel safe speaking your mind on a particular topic, chances are you will remain silent in the face of injustice or political irritation. This reduces the number of people that hear your point of view, reducing the number of minds that think about those ideas. It reshapes public discourse and public perception. THAT is a useful application of this technology for tyranny and it actually happens in some less enlightened countries on an ongoing basis, countries where the people tolerate that kind of behavior, resentfully or otherwise.

The fourth amendment was written in a way that inhibits mass surveillance/management of public communication, but since it was written before computers, let alone electricity, we don't apply it where we should.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Or do we believe that if you have nothing hide, you shouldn't mind? I guess as long as you never plan to politically resist those in power, you shouldn't mind. What if we started to avoid political dissent out of fear of what happened to that one guy we heard about in the news? That's a possible goal for someone utilizing the technology for social manipulation. It's best that we don't even create these tools or undermine the tools that make the application of surveillance more problematic like cryptography. That makes all but aspiring tyrants less secure.

Furthermore, there are and will always be ways for criminals and terrorists to avoid detection using software like TOR and the Internet. Is catching a few sloppy terrorists worth giving these virtually irrevocable surveillance powers to our governments?

It's not unprecedented that terrorism can be used as an excuse to obtain excessive government power for creating a tyranny, a usurpation of the collective will of a people. It is suspected that the Nazis set fire to the German parliament building called the Reichstag as a false flag operation blamed on communist terrorists to get the people to yield the government more power for protection from terrorism. It apparently worked. Then there is this quote from Hermann Goering, Nazi Air Force (Luftwaffe) Commander at the Nuremberg Trials that speaks of such a thing.

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

Tyrants model our minds and manipulate us. Let's not make it any easier than it has to be.