This whole privacy thing is pretty mute if the lack of privacy doesn't come with its own danger. The wider princple is likely based around a simpler question.

This whole privacy thing is pretty mute if the lack of privacy doesn't come with its own danger. The wider princple is likely based around a simpler question. Who is more of more danger to you. A cabal of rich drug dealing terroist pedophiles or your own Government? The argument then becomes one of statistics and then of the lesser harm. I imagine the answer is obvious with the Government being sigificantly more harmful. You're likely comparing a few hundred deaths of tens of thousands. You'll always find a subset of the population who thinks the death of citizens or harm is justified in some way, because they took some action that broke the law. But find enough examples where the offernder did no direct harm to anyone else and I suspect you'll give most reasonble people pause for concern. And if the facts don't match your gut, then maybe you're wrong and privacy isn't all that important.