Overall, you do a great job highlighting all of the human/civil rights and privacy issues with a surveillance state, but what are your solutions? Is humanity just screwed? No hope for democracy?

If we go the China/Russia route of surveillance I would definitely agree. If the GOP in the US regains power, I’d probably agree as well. But I hold onto some hope that the rule of law is still a thing and we’ll be able to develop a legal framework that addresses security threats while respecting rights. We’ve implemented these in other areas of democratic societies with reasonable degrees of success (eg, airport security - it’s annoying and can be invasive, but we’ve gone 20 years without another 9/11).

Surveillance technology is here to stay and will only improve. I’m cautiously optimistic that democracy is nimble enough to adapt to it.