Surveillance is not about protecting us. It's about control.
I think a lot of people are OK with mass surveillance given a basically benign, good government (which many people tend to think our government is, currently).<p>The problem is that once all of this machinery is in place, it can be used by <i>any</i> government that happens to come to power -- it makes it too easy for a non-benign, dictatorial government to say in power, egregiously abusing the ability to spy on arbitrary citizens.