The most important thing that the author mentions though is "How can the government regain the trust of the people?".
Why should it? And do the people even distrust the government?
Just look at the Presidential candidates. All the Republicans left are totally in favor of mass surveillance, and Hillary, the choice of mainstream Democrats, of course is a big fan of ubiquitous surveillance. Face it, most of the American public, except maybe the Millenials and Gen-Z, love the idea of having the government spy on them all the time "for their safety".
citation needed
And yes, I know how democratic candidates are selected. The people are going to have plenty to do with it (that's what all those primary elections are about).
I agree that Hillary is the establishment candidate. That's pretty hard to argue with. But if she doesn't win, it will be because people didn't vote for her.
You can't sit here and say "The public doesn't care. Look at Hillary" when Sanders is actually the popular candidate and he is a proponent of stronger privacy laws.
While Sanders has swung to near parity (slightly ahead in some) in national polls, he's finished just behind Hillary in both Iowa and Nevada caucuses (but well ahead in the NH primary). He's won slightly fewer votes overall, and the two candidates have about the same number of pledged delegates (I've seen different sources claiming 52/51 Hillary and an even 51/51 current split.) This is based on actual votes of actual voters, not skewed to establishment figures. Neither candidate is, either on the actual votes or the national polls, substantially more popular.
Hillary is far ahead in terms of informal commitments by unpledged delegates (superdelegates) who are mostly incumbent party officeholders, but those aren't votes, and while some media outlets report them as if they were the same as pledged delegates, they aren't. Superdelegates can and do switch allegiance over the course of the campaign, the same way as other public endorsements do.
Most of the exit polling breakouts I've seen have shown that (among Democratic primary/caucus participants) he does better among the young, among white voters, among people who have not participated in Democratic primaries/caucuses before, and among people who do not describe themselves as liberal, with Hillary doing better among the opposite groups.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/5392/trust-government.aspx
> Just look at the Presidential candidates.
The Republican frontrunner is popular mostly because he has nothing to do with the government, and has no respect for most of the government.
Anyway, looking at presidential candidates is not that useful, because I think a huge amount of voters would say something like "I don't trust the government at all, that's why I'm voting for <x>".
I suspect you're confusing "loving the idea" with "feeling trapped, unable to see any alternative".
https://www.asc.upenn.edu/news-events/publications/tradeoff-...
John Oliver did a show on this. It isn't that they are in favor of it, it is that they don't understand the implications. They think the spying is limited to just terrorist, not realizing that everything they do is being spied on.
I assume this is the same episode everyone was talking about but it's the Snowden one and the street interviews are pretty sad (as they always are).
My feeling is that most people would be against mass surevillance and anti-encryption posturing if they truly understood what was happening and what the imnplications were.
Unfortunately most people do not have a reason to learn about basic infosec during their daily lives and remain blissfully ignorant about it.