Government Monitoring

Okay so a recent topic of conversation has been this government monitoring being brought to light. I have heard both sides of the argument, still not sure exactly how I feel about it though. My first thoughts were: "wow that's a scary thought."

One of my friends kept saying "monitor away, I have nothing to hide," and at first this is sort of how I felt, but then I started to think, what if the day comes where I do have something to hide?

I guess my main argument is "what has been the main plot point of almost every sci fi movie?" A government that monitors the populations every move. And who monitors the monitors?! Well it ends up being a computer. And not just any computer, an intelligent computer, one that can almost think for itself. I believe this is what I am most afraid of, because the one decision after some time  almost unanimously that these computers come to in Sci fi movies (iRobot, Terminator, Eagle Eye) is that humanity is on its way to destroying itself, so the only way to save them is to start anew (i.e. wipe them out). This conclusion is actually quite a logical one for the intelligent computers to come up with.

But maybe if we had this technology, we wouldn't have accused every Muslim in the US of being a terrorist, put bags over their heads, and shipped them off to Guantanamo for no bloody reason.

Although this is just one case. But I think my main fear is that if we end up putting a computer in charge, that's when I will wish this act didn't go through, because I will have something to hide at that point. I don't want the world to turn into a robot apocalypse.

What do you all think about this mess?

ARK