Why I worry about surveilance

(I've been meaning to write this for a while.)

There is a constant stream of posts and press articles about people discovering that numerous government intelligence agencies, surprise surprise, collect a huge amount of information on people. It's kind of their mandate, so I don't blame them for trying to do their job as effectively as possible, but I do blame those who gave them such sweeping mandates in the first place.

So what do I blame them for, you might ask? In a nutshell, I blame them for facilitating despotism.

( Upon rereading this, I figured it would be polite to put a cut here )