>> "Why did we never see it coming?"
You were never taught it in a rote fashion.
Fact is all intelligence services are heavily into their science and control. Its not just computer hacking they are into, they use psychology, medicine and finance to control the population. They have evolved the techniques first used and developed by successive religions since at least as far back as the ancient Sumerians.
Solomon Asch and his conformity experiments https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIh4MkcfJA which continue to evolve to this day, is a useful tool for keeping people out of trouble, otherwise to quote an ancient religious expression "The devil makes work for idle hands to do" and who wants to go backwards in the Maslow's Hierarchy of needs?
So just like some people do not want to believe that God doesnt exist, some people do not want to believe their country's security services are spying on them 24/7 since the day they were born, hence why the hierarchical structure of society, currently called democracy, but included Royal governance and religious governance in the past, is still the leading way to operate in plain sight after more than 10,000 years of society. Maybe I should be called Mustapha Mond ;-)