Yep, I was talking about this whole situation with my wife and she of course was like "I've got nothing to hide, yadda, yadda." I tried to explain why it matters even so, and she kinda just dismissed it as not mattering to her as much as the government "protecting" us.

I'm convinced most of us Americans just don't care, and that bothers me more than what the government is doing.

The tech community paints this as a government conspiracy in opposition to the desires of the public. I think it's mostly because the tech community is generally opposed to this stuff, and they incorrectly project that onto the population. I think it's also partly because this scenario is a lot more comforting than reality.

If it's government running amok, that leaves open the possibility that they can be reigned in. All you need to do is get the people sufficiently aware and sufficiently angry and the problem is solved!

But if it's simply the government obeying the will of the people, then we're screwed much harder. Convincing people who are deeply afraid of terror attacks and who find comfort in massive government programs meant to protect them that they should invert their priorities is massively difficult, perhaps impossible.

You are mistaken. There are polls which show that the majority of Americans care far more about privacy than fighting terrorism.

The government-run polls that really matter a.k.a. elections don't seem to bear this out.