False positives. No system is 100% accurate, but the closer that systems get to 100% reliability, the more people confuse those systems with 100% reliability.

The Panopticon™ claims you robbed the bank. You know you were at work, in a meeting, and your coworkers vouch for your alibi. But the Panopticon™ is "always" right, so you get fast-tracked through the courts (saves taxpayer money not to have the case dragged out) and sentenced to ten years for a crime you didn't commit (your public defender was a huge help at sentencing). Because after all, if you couldn't trust the Panopticon™, then why the hell did they spend $600 billion of taxpayer money building it?

American society was founded on the bedrock of a few principles: you're innocent until you're proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, crime is prosecuted and not prevented, your reputation can be reset by moving somewhere new and making a new beginning, and trust, faith, and forgiveness are more worthy aims than proof, evidence, and justice, for the latter can only really obtained with great difficulty and cost through the courts. Panopticons go against all these principles.

The problem isn't with the ideal scenario, the issue is when systems fail or are used outside of the ideal scenario. Generally this will be in a muzzling and controlling capacity when it comes to surveillance.

Interestingly merely paranoia of surveillance results in self muzzling and self imposed restrictions.

In the end the results are not conducive for societies progress.

> Interestingly merely paranoia of surveillance results in self muzzling and self imposed restrictions.

My dad got me paranoid about surveillance. Once I grew up old enough to look more than 2 years ahead I started censoring myself because the internet never forgets and I don't want to give a dossier full of potentially incriminating data when/if we slide from democracy to dictatorship.

The upside is that social media is ruined for me forever ;). In light of recent commentary, links to depression and addiction it looks like it turned out healthier for me.

Nonetheless I'm fully aware of the level of self-censorship I tend to sustain.

Facial recognition will not make a dent in "mistaken identity, fraud, he-said she-said issues" without displacing something like "the entire military budget," which is not going to happen. Facial recognition also doesn't work.

Your argument is against fundamental freedoms that humans have granted one another, which have allowed civilization to improve over time (with "bad times" alongside). Anyone against dictatorial (not the benevolent kind) powers would never argue for everyone to be micro-chipped and tracked, disallowing all cash, etc. Even in democratic setups these kind of additions and restrictions tweak the power asymmetry significantly, and are causing a lot of human suffering. In short, these moves aren't great for humanity as a whole.

unless the entire government is as transparent as your massive surveillance, no thanks. our democracy is extremely fragile. if information collection goes into a black box it's a turn-key solution for totalitarianism.

for instance, see the Stasi.

...however, if intelligence gathered were all open-access, and classification abolished, I'd be into it.

As long as we can stop dancing around the fact that most of us drive faster than the speed limit, smoke dope, and/or have unconventional sexual relationships at some point in our lives.

There are systems of power that will never fall that make this egalitarian idea irrelevant (and dangerous)

Suppose someone didn't want their grandparents to know they were gay.

Or worse, the government of a country where that gets you the death penalty.

Worse still, a government comes to power in your country and changes the law so you get the death penality, and it's retroactively enforced by looking through everyone's location history.

Yea, this is a troubling one. I brought up my original post as a thought experiment and I think some arguments presented were better than others.

Governments are fallible just like human beings. I suppose in some sense it is arrogant to believe the US will always remain a democracy and certainly other countries have much more tumultuous histories.

I still like the idea of a totally open and transparent society but without something totally incorruptible and unbiased taking the role of government it does not seem practical.

What about consent?

What policies and processes would ensure transparency?

It would also be a great help in controlling dissenters and subversives. Once we have the infrastructure in place, it's there for anyone with enough power to use for any reason...

Let's say I make frequent visits to mosques, and there's a government unfriendly to Muslims in power, as one of many hypothetical scenarios where this could be a real problem.

Looking at data storage rates and 'digital permanence': we should be equally concerned that such a government may one day be in power and retroactively use that data against you.

Innocence is remarkably difficult to prove.

Let's say I visit a church regularly, and someone who later turns out to be a terrorist was often there at the same time. Not surprising, since houses of worship often have predictable schedules of events.

How do I prove I wasn't collaborating with the terrorist?

All it takes is one cop who doesn't give a shit to abuse the system.