We live in a powerful hi-tech era in which those that can imagine certain products and instruments can often bring those thoughts into successful fruition; so that today we often find that just about anything that we can desire that intrudes upon the space and privacy of an individual or entity can be successfully produced. This means that given this background information, it can now be stated for the first time in history, that if the government or other unknown powerful entities want to track a particular individual or group of individuals in such a manner so as to hear, see, and know everything actionable being done by that individual or entity, there is little that the particular individual or entity can do to protect themselves from this intrusiveness.
While on the one hand, this might bring satisfactory smiles to the faces of certain government officials that we can keep track of and monitor the "bad guys", the fundamental problem with this sort of smug attitude, is that this is the exact same power that can correlate, process, and analyze anybody, without limits, and that therefore we have created, whether deliberately or not, a government bureaucracy and power which is a law unto itself.
Yet through all of this that is being created, is not created without human intelligence and human input, which means that there are many men and women that while conducting their work and research, know that the tools that they are creating and perfecting, are tools that in the hands of irresponsible people, have the absolute capability of immense harm to individuals and are inimical to the very principles of this republic.
It would then be far too easy to let these creative geniuses off, with an acknowledgment that anybody's work can be used for harm, and that they therefore are entitled to do their best within the parameters of their job, unless they are knowingly aware that what they are working on or pursuing is something that is clearly illegal or morally suspect. That, my friends, is the type of fallacious reasoning, which simply is another way of stating that it's not my responsibility, nor my fault, that somebody, somehow, uses my input and work for harm, even though there are obvious cracks in that mirror.
The main reason why people will hide behind this sort of self-justifying reasoning is so that they can wash their hands of all ill effects of their work, such as Pilate washing his hands, before rendering his decision that the Christ must be crucified, while stating that; "I am innocent of the blood of this just person," even though he held the power to stay the execution.
It can be stated that those that create the technology that is ultimately used in such a manner so as to harm their fellow human beings, or as an aid in order to persecute those that are considered to be an inconvenience to the State, are in effect, culpable for what they have wrought. It isn't any good to put your head in the sand and pretend that you don't know what you really do know, or to state to yourself, that these things are beyond your pay grade or other lame or vacillating excuses. Any corrupt empire runs on the willingness of others to serve them, rightly or wrongly, for good pay or not, and each of us must therefore ask the question each and every day, to what power or principality that it is we will serve.