There are state actors other than the US Government, along with plenty of non-state actors who are willing to use illegal techniques on occasion, and this does

There are state actors other than the US Government, along with plenty of non-state actors who are willing to use illegal techniques on occasion, and this does increase people's protection against those actors. If you're in a developing country and you engage in activism against some questionable project by the state owned mining company, you're probably not going to get the full force of the NSA directed against you. But your country's domestic intelligence agency may be interested, and they probably only have off the shelf spyware to work with.