That viewpoint seems a little condescending. Maybe people can comprehend exactly what is going on and simply don't care. The type of people who frequent HN will quickly dismiss the "you have nothing to worry about if you have nothing to hide" argument, but it is still the belief held by a wide swath of normal citizens. Many people are perfectly fine with some faceless government entity knowing who they are talking to if that decreases their odds of dying in a terrorist attack by a tiny percentage. I also have yet to see anyone in our tech circles able to clearly establish a link between this surveillance and a negative impact on the day-to-day life of the average American voter. If you want people to make this issue an political priority, you need to do a better job than just appealing to abstract ideals and slippery slope arguments about future dystopias.

It is the same thing with Facebook. It isn't necessarily that people don't know the sacrifices they are making to their own privacy by using Facebook. It is that the utility people get out of Facebook is more valuable to them than any abstract idea of privacy. You need to show people the real world repercussions if you want them to change their behavior or beliefs.