I don't think they are, I think Govt's see the net as a free pass to bypassing the laws on privacy and most folks are either apathetic or ignorant of whats going on around them in the online realm, if the postman started opening your mail before he handed it over to you you may rightly get extremely annoyed with him, but do the same thing with email and for some reason the entire population does not see the danger to democracy and free speech, blind trust is what has lead many a country into war, the truth only appearing after the killings have begun and its not just that sort of killing either, corruption of those tasked to watch over us all can never be gauged due to obscure secrecy laws whipped into play by fear and written for usage in wartime, who's to say if and when valuable financial information is not going awry ?
I know its been documented that the US indulge in this kind of economic activity but lets not pretend they are not all doing it , in most cases the rich sponsor the oppression of the poor who don't have the wads of cash to buy off the politicians to pass such legislation the way those who want a backchannel of folks private information do.
What they are scared of if anything is normal folks finally comprehending that they are the ones in charge and not some semi elected chumps chosen from a miniscule pool of folks who sell their souls to a party heirachy to get on the gravy train.
