Is it beacuse a lot of people feel unsafe or is it because the people supposed to ensure our security see it as the "easiest" or most effective way to do their job?
Is there so much benefit to having a fuctioning mass surveilance apparatus, and if yes, who benefits of it if not the people for whom these rules for in the first place?
Besides, there is a laaaarge amount of influential, rich and well connected people like Ashton Kutcher/Thorn willing to profit off of it. They're selling out our freedoms for personal gain.
Democracy is a spectrum and it comes in many flavors.
For example nobody voted for von der Leyen, the French voted against the EU referendum in 2005 but the government still went with it, there hasn't been any referendum in France since
I am not saying this is false, but think about the inverse: are there non-democratic states never drifting into mass surveillance? Maybe it is a symptom of a developed, high-trust society.
Which doesn't make mass surveillance a good thing. I'm just contemplating whether it's even possible to turn out different.
The issue is that Europe is behind in tech; particularly big communication networks (aka: social networks). One key element here is that the amount of taxes paid by the Facebooks and co. is ridiculously low and their importance in the economy is getting bigger and bigger. This causes a significant risk for the future.
Any attempt that we made to combat this on the technological aspect has been a complete failure.
To protect its citizen, Europe uses the biggest weapon at its disposal: regulations. The point is not to impose mass surveillance, nor is it to protect the children; the point is to hurt social networks because they are perceived as a threat (real or not). Hammer them with regulations until it's almost impossible to comply, if possible by implementing conflicting ideas (protect privacy of everyone BUT check every image for child pornography !).
The desired outcome is that: either the social network goes out of Europe, or decides to accept the fines, which more or less corresponds to what Europe believes should have been paid by a fair tax system.
Expect the exact same thing to happen with AI.
Tech doesn't create terrorism or child abuse.
If the EU wished more competition by domestic companies, they could simply pass a law restricting the income tax by member states to not go over 50% of earned income. In my current jurisdiction, a lowly IT worker can easily pay a 66% tax rate, with 54% being paid as nominal taxes and the rest going as employer taxes. Unless you are self-employed, in which case you will get to pay your 66% with no smoke curtains in the middle.
Democracy, even a flawed democracy leaves the status quo power structure vulnerable to being changed by popular political action. Mass surveillance allows the existing players to identify any nascent political movements that may eventually grow to threaten them and undermine or destroy these movements before they ever become a threat.
Technology is evil. Specifically, the Internet is evil.
It's why it's got such a uniquely rich potential for dystopia, why all news is always bad news, why it's always getting worse.
Technology, as it progresses, is the enabling of power. So you'll find more and more power exerted over you because people can't resist. You'll have to assert power of your own to counter it, like switching to Linux or using a VPN. Or torrenting a media to escape the oppressive DRM placed upon it. But it's essentially a war you've found yourself enlisted in. If you've got the chops to fight in it, you're lucky; most don't.
I single out the Internet because it connects us with oppressors and makes us reliant on them more intimately than ever before. AI will be able to extend that oppression even in an air gapped environment because now the oppressor's intent can be packaged up and installed on the machine like never before -- no connection required.
And, in the limit, I think it all ends with gray goo, Daybreak style.
1. Voluntary chatcontrol (i.e. temporary derogation of the ePrivacy directive)
2. Mandatory chatcontrol (i.e. services must scan private communication once a detection order is issued)
The first version of chatcontrol is currently in effect, but it will expire in a few years. It was introduced, because social media (like facebook) was already scanning private communication to find CSAM and then someone pointed out that this is illegal in the EU and thus the ePrivacy directive was sabotaged to allow the scanning of private communication.
Facebook wanted to have a legal basis for the scanning of private communication. This does not hurt non-EU social networks, it helps them.
Now add VAT to really see how little of your labour translates into purchasing power.
DRM is not caused by technology, it is manufactured by laws that make it illegal to break. Operating systems that take control away from the user are not caused by technology, they are made possible by laws that make it illegal to modify them and share those modifications. Doomscrolling is not caused by technology, it is made possible by allowing corporate proaganda (aka ads) which make rage bait profitable.
We are in this dystopia not because technology is inherently evil but becaus this what our governments want.
Please don't paint bike sheds. Drones are a new threat, obviously with humans manufacturing, arming and flying them.