Just wait til we have an administration in the White House (I’m guessing not this one?) which directly threatens your freedoms in such a way that they can easily use cameras to prosecute those who they disagree with.

Current governments have used the mass surveillance to go after people for abortions and for being too foreign-seeming (even if here legally). If those don’t affect you, surely you can think of something that the next wave of government officials might be opposed to, which could use a surveillance network to take away from you.

Having laws to prevent abuses doesn’t help when the lawmakers change and can just revoke those laws, while the full infrastructure exists to do whatever they want.

> Red light cameras, for example, strike me as unalloyed good.

This actually makes me think that your post is satire, due to the heavy debate on whether these cameras actually improve safety [0]. Lots of studies that contradict each other on that. I agree we need to prevent the recklessness of drivers, and there is an argument to be made here. But it’s not at all obvious like you imply.

From [0]:

> When the Houston cameras were removed, angle accidents increased by 26 percent. However, all other types of accidents decreased by 18 percent. Approximately one-third of all Houston intersection accidents are angle accidents. This suggests that the program’s drawbacks canceled out its benefits.

> Our study showed no evidence that cameras reduce the total number of accidents. We estimate that total accidents are reduced by a statistically insignificant 3 percent after the cameras are turned off.

> Likewise, there’s no evidence that the camera program reduced the number of traffic-related injuries or the likelihood of incurring an incapacitating injury.

[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/red-light-cameras...

This post is a good example of why I find the anti-surveillance people so tiresome

> Just wait til we have an administration in the White House (I’m guessing not this one?) which directly threatens your freedoms in such a way that they can easily use cameras to prosecute those who they disagree with.

"You must not be gay/trans/black/hispanic/female or you'd agree with me" is not a good argument.

We're living in a brave new world where cameras and storage are cheap, networks are fast, etc. People have cameras at their front doors, stores have cameras, appartment buildings have cameras, etc. We need to deal with these facts productively, i.e. with legislation and serious thinking, rather than inane comments like "women seeking abortions have been tracked therefore we need to ban cameras".