Advantages of mass surveillance - a contrarian view

Disclaimer: I used to work for NSA. They are not allowed to spy on Americans unless they are suspected of something like terrorism or espionage. 

Since is already exists, it might as well be used intelligently. It would make it much easier to catch criminals. Whenever a crime occurs, the time and location are usually known. All that's left after that is to see what phones were pinging off the nearby cell towers. This method was used to find the terrorists responsible for the Bali bombings in 2002. If only metadata is used, I don't see a violation of the 4th amendment as the government knows everyone's address already. If you really don't want the government to know where you are when you're away from home, you can always leave your phone at home or turn it off and remove the battery. A Faraday cage would work as well. Since criminals are usually dumb and impulsive, I doubt many of them would take these precautions. 

It is a common practice for ISPs to turn over the browsing and search histories of the accused to law enforcement. Often that information is incriminating. The basic principle is that people suspected of crimes lose their privacy. There is also a settled principle that there is no expectation of privacy in a public place, which is where most crimes occur. Hypothetically, I think most judges would authorize metadata search warrants for all wireless devices near crime scenes. There is also the deterrent effect such a practice would have. It is similar to the use of license plates. A car without a license plate is immediately suspicious. Smart criminals will swap license plates or steal cars to hide their identities. If license plates are not an invasion of privacy, does that principle extend to metadata in public places? It's something that ought to be debated and settled with a Supreme Court ruling.

Of course, whatever is used against criminals can be used against political dissidents. The marriage of government and big tech makes it easier to suppress dissent without targeting individuals. Given what people are willing to tolerate from TSA, I find it odd that so many worry about the government having their metadata. I predict that Minority Report will remain science fiction.