I believe standing in the way of mass surveillance is always constructive for democracy. Spying on the private communications of nearly every person is fundamentally incompatible with a free and democratic society.
And, notably, in any kind of government, a group with temporary political power will naturally want to optimize for the preservation of that power. A dampening function that resists rapid change, and specifically resists things like mass surveillance that can distort democratic processes, is a feature, not a bug.
