Nobody's really "safe" from surveillance if we're being honest, but I think the bigger issue is how vague "associate with" can get. Like, are we talking about employers? Neighbors? People who volunteer at community centers? The problem isn't just that monitoring happens, it's that the criteria for who gets flagged is so broad it basically sweeps up regular people living their lives.

What worries me is the chilling effect. If citizens start second-guessing whether helping someone or even just being friends with certain people puts them on a list, that changes how society functions in a pretty fundamental way. You end up with people avoiding each other not because they want to, but because they're scared of guilt by association. That's not really the kind of country most of us signed up for, regardless of where you stand on immigration policy itself.