Define 'random'...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-van-buren/parallel-const...
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130...
> Something like "Private Citizen X criticized the government and embarrassing information about his life was revealed as a consequence."
https://theintercept.com/2014/02/18/snowden-docs-reveal-cove...
You mean like that?
> There are lots of bad things that the government could do.
Does, not could do.
> But it just hasn't happened.
It happens, but it just does not manage to cross your threshold for worry because you personally are not inconvenienced.
> They've had mass surveillance technology in place for over a decade now.
For longer than that, and it has been abused for longer than that too.
> The world hasn't fallen apart
It will not 'fall apart' because of this. But it will change because of this, and not for the better.
> Hitler hasn't risen from the dead and everything is pretty much the same as it was before.
Yes, we still have willfully blind people that would require things to get so bad that they would no longer be able to avert their eyes before they would consider maybe things have gone too far. But by then they would have indeed gone too far.
> I guess we can check back in another ten years to see if your apocalyptic visions have come to pass yet.
It will never be a moment in time, we will just simply keep on creeping up to it, just like the frog in the pot of water.
What fascinates me is that there are people that are obviously reasonably intelligent that manage to actually see the pot, the stove and all that it implies and they still tell other frogs to jump in, the water is fine.