Yes, yes, and yes. We should stop blaming government officials for this. For all the flaws of American democracy, we still mostly get the government we (collectively) want.
A lot of techies seem to look around at their fellow techies, see little support for ubiquitous surveillance and other erosions of civil liberties, and assume the general population feels the same. They then conclude that the government is doing this for nefarious reasons against the wishes of the people, and that the solution is to make government more representative of popular sentiment.
As far as I can tell, government is already representative of popular sentiment here. If we want to change these things, we need to convince people in general that change is a good idea.
A lot of techies seem to look around at their fellow techies, see little support for ubiquitous surveillance and other erosions of civil liberties, and assume the general population feels the same. They then conclude that the government is doing this for nefarious reasons against the wishes of the people, and that the solution is to make government more representative of popular sentiment.
As far as I can tell, government is already representative of popular sentiment here. If we want to change these things, we need to convince people in general that change is a good idea.