No doubt people with more influence will be able to limit the repercussions of actions that would ruin others, yet pretty much anyone who has influence is bound

No doubt people with more influence will be able to limit the repercussions of actions that would ruin others, yet pretty much anyone who has influence is bound to want to use it, and by its nature anything that is disruptive is likely to upset yet some other person who has influence. Take for example David Petraeus. His career may have been only collateral damage of an investigation that took advantage of records of drafts and IP addresses used to log into gmail. He may have felt sincerely honor bound to resign, and his career may resurrect itself, especially if his party is about to nominate some of its most crazy for the presidential election. However, it is at least possible to imagine that people who were happy to see him lose influence wouldn't have been eager to stick out their own necks to sweep everything under the rug. I think there are at least a couple broad categories of people who have different relationships with power and surveillance. You can be wealthy, enjoying your wealth and no threat to anyone else with influence, or you may be someone who has the resources to effect the change you think the world needs. Once upon a time monarchs put aside their differences in attempts to hunt down regicides, but on other days they occupied themselves with trying to conquer each others' realms.