I don't support ubiquitous spying at all but are you hanging out with known ISIS members or members of White Nationalist Militias regularly? Because I'm pretty sure that's where the line begins.
There's a lot of grey here. What does "hanging out" mean? If my weird uncle is (unknown to me) in ISIS does spending thanksgiving with him count as "hanging out"? ISIS is at least pretty specific, but what counts as a White Nationalist Militia? Both of these can be redefined to capture more and more of the population if desired.
This is what we have attorneys and judges for. And no, obviously Thanksgiving isn't "hanging out". But going to the same weekly meeting and practicing lynching minorities? Yeah, that's a little more than just mashed potatoes and gravy, isn't it. (These contrived "whatabout" gotchas are exhausting. It is abundantly obvious who is and who is not involved with white nationalist militias.)
It's really the court of public opinion that has the greatest risk of harm at the day to day level. A non-poc going to the gun range and then posting on social media could cause a "White Nationalist Militia" label to get attached by a jilted coworker and then go viral. That can cause serious harm.
There aren't legal arguments by the targets in law enforcement search (either physical or wiretap) warrant cases either, that mainly only happens if (as does not always happen) the product of the search is used in criminal prosecution later.
I think they're just saying it's a slippery slope. It starts out with good intentions we all agree on, but then continues to slide and more and more of our freedoms erode as they crank up the boiling pot ever so slowly.
If you don't know, who they are and just happen to serve a 'bad guy' ( hate that term ) a burger, should you be in the crosshairs? Because this is where this is heading. If you think I am overselling it, remember that police in US can ask for all users from specific location.
To your point, if there is indeed a line, it need to be clearly articulated so that the rules of the game clear.
You've heard of guilt by association, well guilt by co-location isn't that far off. Along the same lines, the rationale is going to be, "We need to track everyone so we can be sure to see all relationships and connections, and connections to connections, and so on.
Try to draw the line wherever you want, but they're going to step over it, and never look back.
Maybe that's where the line starts, but does it stay there? As an example, look at how the US's anti-communist fervor led to things like COINTELPRO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
Especially today, I think we have to look at every power we might give to government and ask, "What happens if the worst people get access to this?" Because they're certainly going to try.
From my perspective, the easiest way to design such a system would be to create entries for every 'actor' in the system, feed in as much data as you can get your hands on, and then let the weights sort themselves out. So for example, if you're hanging out with ISIS members obviously your weights would be higher, but even if you're a server at Applebees you'd still be in the system somewhere.
Doing it the other way necessitates some kind of bright-line division, and any such boundary, once defined, becomes susceptible to exploitation. e.g. I won't hang out with the White Nationalist Militia because that puts me "into the system", but I can hang out with insert radical right-wing group where I can talk to 80% of the same people without being flagged. In practice, I imagine that the gradient of extremism is rather gradual and with blurred boundaries.
Are you familiar with FISC? I'd say go familiarize yourself with its case law, but you can't, because it's secret. And it authorizes methods much more powerful and invasive than a simple search warrant. Precedent exists, but nobody outside the national security state actually knows what it is.
You're maybe proposing another line where no spying is legal at all and we should just submit ourselves to the whims of terrorists or other lunatics? Surely there is actually a line where there are tradeoffs between security and privacy and its probably not 0% security and 100% privacy.
Perhaps you think all FISA rulings should be public and any sufficiently savvy malicious actors can just read them to know exactly how to avoid suspicion?
Everything the FISA process overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review can authorize (and much more invasive means, contrary to your claim) can be authorized by regular search warrant.
The FISC process is used when the purpose is foreign intelligence rather than domestic law enforcement, and it exists because prior to that there was no limit on the covered activity when it was done for that purpose.
> Precedent exists, but nobody outside the national security state actually knows what it is.
