Re: So what's new?
"The example of Baltimore a few weeks back suggests that general - i. e. "mass" - surveillance may be quite reasonable. "
How?
People have the right to protest. Some people may have rioted, but "guilt by association" is currently not legal in the United States. If people are rioting, you do the hard goddamned leg work of catching them. You do not associate everyone who is participating in a perfectly legitimate and legal protest with rioters, any more than you associate all members of a particular religious or ethnic group with terrorism.
You might try to say that the protests had been deemed illegal by the folks running the place, except that doing so is a violation of the constitution of the US of NSA, which specifically allows all sorts of assembly...even assembly aimed at changing the regime or removing specific people from power.
Unless, of course, you want to say that the constitution doesn't mean anything, or that the law should not apply equally to all people. In either case it would mean the law is invalid and should not be upheld, the nation as a whole should be defunct and the US of NSA should now be considered in a state of civil war.
The law applies to everyone or to noone. And the law of the land includes the first, fourth and fifth ammendments, at least in the US of NSA.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
