No, I understand the chilling effect argument perfectly. Chilling effects are sometimes very real, but more often are invoked as pure hypotheticals that are intentionally structured to be unfalsifiable. They're also often used in places where there's no actual evidence to support such an effect.
Your claim and subsequent lack of concrete examples are a prime demonstration of this. Many of the sources you cited in your last comment contained more rhetoric than logic, so it's somewhat ironic that you're trying to claim to be a rational person whilst being swayed by such arguments.
I made a convincing, well-cited argument as to the prevalence of police and government abuse of existing surveillance tools across multiple US cities, and established that NYC has an authoritarian government. I linked to pieces from prominent organizations specifically dealing with chilling effects and ALPRs, which can be used as the basis for further research. I linked to a Supreme Court ruling in which a judge specifically mentioned how surveillance causes a chilling effect and a reduction in freedom of expression.
You are unwilling to accept any of this and also unwilling to do your own research. You mistake a well-rounded argument for gish gallop. You're looking for "logic" and not "rhetoric", but those are such vague, moving targets. These are all references which I provided you on short notice due to your own refusal to research the subject. These are not the pieces which "swayed" me. I have been reading deeply about this subject for decades and I cannot possibly be bothered to compile an extensive list of books and articles which you will probably discount and not read, I cannot simply transmit my knowledge to you. At some point you have to do the work yourself and connect the dots, if you have a specific form of evidence you are looking for, spend some time looking for it.
It's honestly a given that mass surveillance creates a chilling effect and erosion of trust, and the onus should really be on you to disprove it.
> It's honestly a given that mass surveillance creates a chilling effect and erosion of trust, and the onus should really be on you to disprove it.
But it isn't, and this is the entire problem with your argument: you've assumed your conclusion to be true. This leads you to ignore basic initial questions, like "do you have evidence for this specific claim?"
When pressed, it turns out you don't, and instead you substitute hypotheticals (that you again assume to be true!), but then blame me for not already believing them to be true.
Again, I can point to specific things that call your original statement into question, such as the continued presence of protests and mass demonstrations in the very city you claim to be subject to this "chilling effect". Instead of providing an explanation as to why that's consistent with your original claim (it isn't!), you then point to more sources with the same hypothetical, and expect me to take them as truth.
The problem is, there's a distinct lack of evidence for your repeated claims, and additional hypotheticals do not fill that void.
So no, I do understand, and I understand why your argument is flawed. It's simple, really: the "chilling effect" makes sense on the surface, is plausible as a hypothetical, is sometimes true, and is used frequently by sources you already trust. The problem is that it's just a hypothetical, and there a myriad of counterexamples exist which call it into question as a blanket rule, all of which you discount out of hand with no explanation, or simply refuse to acknowledge in the first place.
It's a hypothetical I've seen repeatedly claimed as truth throughout my entire life, only to see its predictions fail to manifest in the vast majority of cases in which it's invoked. What other choice do I have than to question its validity? Your refusal to acknowledge this lack of predictive power does nothing to convince me, in contrast to my lived experience, that it does indeed have predictive power in the first place, and in fact only does the opposite.
I've also repeatedly told you that I understand the hypothetical, and what I'm interested in is concrete evidence of the hypothetical's predicted effects in a specific place where you've claimed it is present. But instead of providing this evidence, you just repeatedly cite more examples of the hypothetical effect being claimed, along with its implied predictions... Surely you can see that this was not what I asked for, is redundant to your original claim, and does nothing to demonstrate the hypothetical's predicted effects in a specific example where you've claimed it as fact? Why are you expecting me to be convinced by just repeatedly making the same assertion over and over, finally just saying "it's a given"?
You made a claim stated as fact, and I asked you for evidence of that specific claim. You have not delivered it, and instead have made it clear you just assume it's true without any evidence at all! How am I supposed to be convinced by that?
Your claim and subsequent lack of concrete examples are a prime demonstration of this. Many of the sources you cited in your last comment contained more rhetoric than logic, so it's somewhat ironic that you're trying to claim to be a rational person whilst being swayed by such arguments.