I'm partially sympathetic to the Government. The Government isn't a monolithic entity where they're all marching lock step towards the same totalitarian goal.
No, it's worse than that, in that we have some parts being turned into agencies and departments that no one wants to reign in because heaven forbid someone put a check on law enforcement power, lest you be considered to be "weak on crime" or "weak on national defense." It's why we still have outdated ideas about incarceration and justice despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary that this shit doesn't work. No one wants to be told prisons don't work, they just want the safety and security illusions of having a prison system. Once they're told that the whole system is broken the illusion of safety is gone.
That's harder to fight. If there was a conspiracy or a tyrant running the NSA doing awful things, it's easy to point that out and say, "Hey, get them! They're the problem." When the problem is more endemic and harder to check than just saying, "The Government is spying on it's citizens and that's bad for a whole host of obvious reasons."
We aren't in an age where the Stasi-like agents are stopping cars asking for papers, but the transition from there to here would be gradual. It's a ... not slippery? Slightly moist and lightly more lubricious than average slope to a terrifying police state no one but the most ardent control freak wants but we wound up with any way because of partisan electoral politicking.
I don't think that Park Services is tapping your phone line and I don't think that DOT and DOE are interested in your private conversations, unless you're out to burn down a forest or school or rest stop.
Even then, that's an FBI matter.
teal dear:
I do still trust the Government, but with a whole lot of caveats.