[stillsut]

1. Couldn't a random hacker do that? Or a hacker affiliated with a private institution (e.g. News of the World)?

2. There's this terrible virus going around that locks you out of your PC or server meaning you lose all your data unless you pay the ransom of $500 in bitcoins. With this new trend in un-regulated crypto-currency, this scam cannot be stopped through the traditional means - financial/bank account freezes. Does this give any privacy proponents pause for thought? Also there's the old hack your webcam and blackmail you which has led people to commit suicide. Again, malicious hackers, not a gov't conspiracy There's actually a reason we've given power to police/enforcers in every aspect of life: because criminals are ruthless and prey on the innocent and gullible - physically, financially, and of course, now cyber-ly.

3. You've actually started to glean the important point in how we deal with cyber evidence as a society. Nobody's life has ever been ruined by getting put into an internal watch-list. But when list become enforceable (like the No-Fly list, or the McCarthy-era communist list) then lives are ruined. This is similar to your point about planting evidence: when the local police and prosecutor get brought into it, lives are at stake. I again wonder though why a spy agency would need to hack evidence onto your computer when they could simply plant in your house; that has happend thousands of times by dirty street cops, while your example - being carried out by a gov't agency - has never been reported to happen even once.