Something bad would have to happen to random citizens as the result of government surveillance. Something like &quot;Private Citizen X criticized the government and embarrassing information about his life was revealed as a consequence.&quot;<p>There are lots of bad things that the government <i>could</i> do. But it just hasn&#x27;t happened. They&#x27;ve had mass surveillance technology in place for over a decade now. The world hasn&#x27;t fallen apart, Hitler hasn&#x27;t risen from the dead and everything is pretty much the same as it was before.<p>I guess we can check back in another ten years to see if your apocalyptic visions have come to pass yet.