"But the children!" has its limits; it's not an argument, but a cynical attempt to make your opponent look like a jerk if they persist in disagreement.
With great power comes great responsibility, which time and time again is shown not to be the case.
If the police want these powers to go after child abusers, let’s give it to them.
But I want to see enshrined into law some consequences to ensure they act responsibly.
For example:
* all use of the technology must be audited and reported upon each year. Any case of the technology being used, but not included the audit leads to a penalty.
* any use of the technology outside of the acceptable use cases put forth (child abuse) leads to a penalty.
The penalty?
* the police department in question loses 25% of their budget.
* loses access to the technology
* the officer in question is fired without pay
* the manager of the officer is fired without pay
* the head of the department is fired
* the minister responsible for the department also fired.
This doesn’t happen. It never happens. Because it’s intended.
Australia’s meta data collection laws were immediately abused to obtain data on journalists. Consequences? Not worth investigating...
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/29/publi...
Layer on top whistle blower laws.
Strong investigative media.
Strong anti-corruption / watch dog organizations.
Add personal liability for those who failed to report incidents.
Remove the 25% budget penalty for cases which are reported from within the police department.
There are plenty of ways to incentivize the behavior we seek, and the complete lack of consequences that exist today incentivize exactly the behavior we see.
Police forces exist to fill power vacuums.
When a police force is weak, other organizations step in to fill the gap. Private security companies are one side of this, organized crime is another. The reality is that somebody has to enforce order, and if it's not the police, then who is it?
So all of these actions you see governments taking around police activities are all about keeping the Police in power so that nobody else takes up the reigns. And continuing on that, it's better for the police to be in power than whatever organization may replace it.
So if we implement the policies you've suggested, we'll greatly weaken the police force's power. Losing 25% of their budget would create a power gap - that's 25% less officers on the street, and 25% more opportunities for criminals. Police make mistakes, sure, but do we want to replace them with private security? Do we want to replace them with the mob?