> We have sleep walked into it.

We didn't sleep walk into it, we ran into it because of poor basic civics education and a cynical media cycle that biases towards making everyone terrified of crime.

The latter is driven by two forces - a profit motive (sensational, gruesome stories sell), and a political motive (media carrying water for far-right-wing candidates loves to keep you scared on this issue).

The optimal level of crime or unsolved crime in a society is not zero, but a lot of people will look at you like you've got three eyes if you tell them that. Talk to them for another ten minutes, and most of them will see why what you say makes sense, but that's not a conversation their television will ever have with them.

>This is clear fascism, but people are too afraid to admit. We have sleep walked into it.

>With such surveillance, administration can [...]

Have you missed all the cries of "fascism" back in 2016/2017? The problem isn't "people are too afraid to admit". It's that "wolf!" was cried too many times and people tuned it out. Ironically this invocation "fascism" is arguably also crying wolf. From wikipedia:

>Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

Is an ANPR network terrible for privacy? Yes, obviously. Is it authoritarian? Maybe[1]. Is everything vaguely authoritarian "fascism"? No.

[1] Consider cell phones. They're terrible for privacy, but nobody would seriously consider them "authoritarian".