[jddj]

While I agree for the most part, these are people who are in positions of power and would like to stay there. They have their personal biases, and their livelihoods depend on their staying in power.

When they say (not in so many words) that "I want for us to be able to bulk monitor communications", I'm not willing to concede that they aren't considering or aware of some of the possible second order effects.

To me it seems more likely that they feel they (may) get to move their crime rate statistics and, when their mind goes for a cursory wander over the likely consequences, they find all of those to be mildly pleasant as well.