I don't think it quite works to try to talk about governments as if they are individual, coherent entities. There are government agencies whose business is to

I don't think it quite works to try to talk about governments as if they are individual, coherent entities. There are government agencies whose business is to collect information. The people working for these agencies will do so _to the extent that they are allowed to_, because that is what they perceive their mission to be. Other people's job is to set limits, and they will set exactly the limits they think they have a mandate to set. They get their sense of that mandate from many possible sources, but in a republic one of the most important sources is public opinion. Which is where you get to the real kernel of the issue: In the USA, surveys indicate that most Americans remain in favor of large scale state surveillance.