If you think its acceptable that a secret government agency can inject itself in any technology device, for whatever purpose it sees fit, without any recourse for the citizens of the country it is supposedly 'supporting', that its acceptable for an agency to have the power to spy on everyone who has ever used a computer, cell phone, or any Internet device, for whatever reason it deems suitable, without oversight from the very people from whom it derives such power, then there really is no decent conversation to be had, here.

"Fringe extremes" is just your way of saying 'you don't think what the collective mind wants you to think, why are you not like everyone else', and in that statement you have said more than enough. You don't think its at all disagreeable to have to 'conform to what society thinks' or else .. "you must be mentally ill"?

Seriously, examine this position. Its a cult-like mentality that doesn't improve conditions - it simply allows those who have the power to continue to extend it and interfere in every day life. Are you okay with having a shadowy organization, with everyones data, beyond the reach of the people you profess to be a major 'part of' in your collective mind-set?

Because I am not. I live in a place where the echoes of tyranny and the heinous information-apparatus it depended on still ring throughout the land. And here you are, safely justifying the creation of a new one, with little consideration for what it truly means that we have no control over the digital domain and its masters, any more.

Popular opinion is just one way to justify being too lazy to form ones own ..