I think, with all due respect, that that's a load of bollocks. Commercial data collection is abhorrent for a variety of reasons, but large-scale, secret government collection of data is a threat to democracy regardless of safeguards.

When I said all collection was not wrong I meant targeted collection, with a warrant and some oversight.

Anyone having access to a database containing the information for large proportions of the population is being handed more power than humans should have over each other, more than enough to blackmail a few key politicians and keep things looking rosy for themselves.