I'm not sure I understand the question. It's not like the NSA is going to shoot a tennis ball at your head if you fail to pay attention to wide-net surveillance

I'm not sure I understand the question. It's not like the NSA is going to shoot a tennis ball at your head if you fail to pay attention to wide-net surveillance. Similarly, the cases where wide-net surveillance has had a detrimental effect on people-- the case of the Stanford student who accidentally got added to the U.S.'s no-fly list comes to mind-- there was probably nothing at all the person could have done to prevent getting screwed.