alt Hacker Newsunless maybe they are democratically controlled with strict oversight and transparency
Lets say it is strictly controlled today. What about in six months? What about next year, 2, 5, 10 years from now? There is no guarantee that strict controls that work today will work tomorrow. The only thing that is guaranteed is it will be abused by someone, at some point, even if it is miraculously tightly controlled today (which itself is not true, as we see from number reports of abuse already).
The only way to prevent data abuse is not to collect un-necessary data in the first place
I don't know that you can be absolutist about these things, we cede a lot of power to the government because it actually does make more sense to pay for and manage some things collectively. I'm deeply against surveillance like this but I don't think practically speaking we can get rid of it entirely. I think we should do our best to dismantle it as much as we can but enforcing the great responsibility part of great power on what's left is also a useful strategy.