To control any political Opponents/ movements/ ideologies. Just Think all the ways this could be abused by a corrupt government.

See the surveillance state by Stalin in soviey russia. https://archive.org/details/youtube-nB5BolMoCZ8

/s ?

German politicians are already sending the police home to people who insult them on forums and social media, including (temporary, but often for an extremely long time) confiscation of devices that may have been used for the "crime". And that's in a country that doesn't literally have masked government goons on the street that regularly abduct, injure and murder the law-abiding population (yet) like the US.

Because their corporate donors want regular workers to be afraid and not get any ideas about redistributing wealth, unionizing, etc