There's a vast gulf between a random schmuck with some aerial imaging and a global, totalitarian, surveillance state with nearly omniscient powers. This stuff is merely yet another database input.
Would you prefer "random and haphazardly prioritized omniscience?" Reducing corruption among prison guards and raising violent crime solution rates is hard. Buying shiny stabilized cameras and airplanes is easy and it's wicked cool. So you need to use your super-powers and arrest some people for... whatever, to show you are using your shiny toys.
It's not hard to explain how a government can have seeming omniscience in some cases, and still be bumbling in many others. That also explains the warped priorities.
