In the US, and perhaps other Western democracies, governments are the people and people are the government, not separate from each other. If a government is doing something, it's because the people value it, at least enough to not change it.
Edit: Downmods? Really? Refute my claims rather than attempt to bury them.
> If a government is doing something, it's because the people value it, at least enough to not change it.
I'm tempted to tell you that's bullshit, and others might feel strongly enough about it that they're clicking the down arrow. The NSA, for example, doesn't care which way I voted. So we have to sit around "knowing" they do stuff, but with no evidence. Finally, evidence comes out ala Snowden. Wait ten more years while we finally get around to passing laws to reign in the offending agencies/people. Add it all up and thirty years have gone by. Meanwhile, using the NSA example, they've found other ways to sneak around or outright flaunt laws, lather, rinse, repeat.
It might look like no one cares, (rather than actually value it, as you say) but even if they do care the change doesn't come overnight.
Yes, the US government has done and probably continues to do very bad stuff. NSA wiretaps are probably one of the least innocuous things it has done.
IF the US people actually did want to shut it down and change the behavior of government, they could. I don't think most do (or at least, don't regularly think about it [but may agree if prompted to consider]), know how they could, or know what actual behavior/policy they would replace things with.
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.