[alan_cx]

Im not sure about your first sentence, but Im kinda with you. Seems to me, at the very least, the majority of people aren't that bothered by what our governments are up to. I think it somewhat trite for people who are against these things simply just snap to a position that says these governments are essentially omnipotent and rule regardless of our concerns. If the mass public were outraged enough, it would stop. In a democracy we cannot divorce ourselves form what our governments doing in out name. Its a cheap lazy cop out.

[jsprogrammer]

Well, the perhaps frightening scenario is that you arrive at a point where everyone assumes that someone else is 'taking care of it', when it fact, that person may be the only one even aware of it.

I'm not sure we're quite in that situation yet, but certainly there are severe inequities in how similar situations are treated (which is supposedly not allowed).

You would expect to see exactly that in a degraded democracy.