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?
Tech doesn't create terrorism or child abuse.
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.
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.