This. Most people see no problem with this surveillance, and I imagine most lawmakers legitimately think they're doing a good thing by allowing it. I've found

This. Most people see no problem with this surveillance, and I imagine most lawmakers legitimately think they're doing a good thing by allowing it. I've found that the average person's views on this issue can actually be quite strange. For example, several of my relatives have told me that they think the NSA is doing a good thing, and that they are perfectly fine having the NSA perform it's activities because they have "nothing to hide". They then tell me that the thing that actually unnerves them is being served targeted ads by companies based on their search history etc. If I try to tell them that these two things aren't easily disentangled, as the NSA gets a lot of their data from these same companies, they can't process it.