"Am I the only one who thinks "the government" is actually made up of lots of independent minds, each with their own idealism and morality?"
That is the exact argument always levied against government conspiracies. It has been debunked thanks to the work of wikileaks, Mr. Snowden, and CIA revelation dumps. Anyone who didn't buy that argument, worked from the assumption you could trust those individuals to behave like any random stranger from the private sector showing up at your door at night, was sane, and intelligent would have come to the conclusion that these organizations were likely guilty of just about everything they turned out to be guilty of.
Government agencies might be populated with lots of independent minds but they are all basically structured like military or corporations with an executive structure. Every single day, every for profit corporation in the US is strategize to save costs, which translates in saving every penny at the expense of their workers they think they can spin without pushback. Year on year companies manage to slash health benefits for example. You don't need a conspiracy, the organization has interests which conflict with those of it's individual members and it's a significant portion of the population that is generally required to distrust the organization and it's spin in order push back against those interests.
So, get back to me when it proves to take a significant portion of the American population conspiring to prevent the illegal and unconstitutional spying revealed by Snowden from continuing. At this point the government is so corrupt that even the vast majority of the American population finding out about their conspiracies and being pissed about it has had ZERO impact beyond blowing some wind.
Also, the Navy and the NSA are one government organization. There is a reason the NSA director is always a high ranking military officer. How exactly does it take a significant portion of the American population to undermine a project built by a small group of people and paid for by the organization with interests that conflict with the rest of us?