However, my appraisal of "safety" markedly differs (like most people's appraisals of things) and I am more concerned with an overzealous government than a foreign attacker. I would trade my google search history for a bullet-proof vest if I was in a war-zone. However, I am not, and I don't think giving it to the government makes me safer.

However, people view the risk to the country and themselves differently and they also put markedly different values on their own privacy[0]. Also, this article should come as absolutely NO surprise to anyone in the HN community (or even anyone with internet).

edit: [0] which they use as a framework to assess how others value their own privacy AND the value they themselves put on others privacy.

The point I was sort of facetiously making here was that the people who implement these things don't think about it the way we do. They probably don't feel ashamed and do it out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, power or coercion(if they got caught doing wire crimes).

More granularly, if you believe you are protecting America from a 9/11 scale attack I could certainly see trading away some of your fellow countrymen's privacy.

These aren't my personal views on privacy or security I was making the point that some engineers won't be ashamed implementing this sort of stuff. I am pro freedom and privacy to be clear, and, I wouldn't make the above trade.

Citation?

I've seen articles like this, http://news.sky.com/story/1523821/child-abuse-pm-tells-polic..., but none that give the reason for the coverup as being enabling MI5 to blackmail people.