[flumbaps]

- The argument that the government be 'monolithic' requires it to be both efficient and non-adversarial, neither is true.

I don't think this is what everyone is worried about. It's not that the entire US government is conspiring against us. It's more that each agency has evolved ideologies and practises that, when taken as a whole, form an oppressive machine. No-one designed that machine, and no-one group controls it. It simply is a function of the increased cooperation of individual agencies who each have their own set of norms and values that fail to align with the true interests of the populous. The US government is becoming more monolithic because of a systemic problem - that is, increased incentives for agencies to cooperate and share information.

- It also requires almost everyone to be amoral sociopaths, perfectly willing to go along with even the darkest and most depraved violations of civil liberties.

This argument assumes that the people who work in the US government have the same social norms and values as the rest of the population. It seems more likely to me that each agency forms its own little closed society, that has drifted away from mainstream society due to the unique freedoms and pressures that agency experiences. The "Blue Code of Silence" is an example of this within the police. Few people are amoral sociopaths, but the vast majority of people will accept the values and norms of their peers without question.