When citizens get used to being watched by their government

• By ignoring smaller surveillance-related privacy erosions, the law is teaching us to accept them, the authors argue.

How it works: Law changes generally focus on dramatic violations — or "privacy chops" — and ignore gradual or routine exposures — "privacy nicks" — conditioning people to accept government surveillance as normal, the authors argue.

• "When lawmakers allow privacy nicks to become routine, repeated exposures can acclimate people to being vulnerable and watched in increasingly intimate ways. With acclimation comes resignation," the authors wrote.
• In other words, repeated low-level intrusions start to feel harmless, shifting what people consider invasive.

Yes, but: Phil Neff, the research coordinator at the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, told Axios public pressure has occasionally forced cities to pause or scale back systems, even as sizable rollbacks are rare.

• "It's possible through advocacy to rein them in," he told Axios. "but it's difficult — and stronger regulation is clearly needed."