My take is that there is a pretty even split in the arena on the reasoning. About half of the people involved in this truly believe that the move from a nation-

My take is that there is a pretty even split in the arena on the reasoning. About half of the people involved in this truly believe that the move from a nation-state security model to a single-actor security model creates an environment where mass-surveillance is a requirement, and then they justify all the (il)legality away based on this ends-begets-the-means view, but don't often say it out loud. There is a second set of people though, closer to the top-tiers and involved in the high levels of the military-congressional-corporate-industrital-complex, who view the internet as a threat, not because of cyber-crime or cyber-terrorism, but because it allows a free anarchistic distribution of information, and feel it "Must be brought under control." Throughout history, every form of communication that has enabled the proletariat open access to information has been brought under control. Printing press, telegraph (remember the Black Chamber for telegraphs?), radio, and television, all privatized and corporatized until they are barely public utilities at all. The internet got ignored for a long time, and it wasn't until the late 90's that the three letters really started paying attention to it. Here we are now with a balkanization of the internet incoming, with TPP and other measures to ensure corporate profits, and mass surveillance as a tool of security and as a tool to deal with dissidents. This is why you have seen and will see an increase in talking heads referencing internet-radicalism, because, it's the perfect setup for censorship. "We must prevent radicalism domestically, therefore please vote for legislation X, so we can censor radical information."