Rather than address these questions, I think you have an extremely important question to resolve. Do these boogeymen exist? Are they capable of social engineering to the extent we should be worried?

It's obvious they don't when you look at even the citizens in their own countries. Which country has a handle on their people and can manipulate them at will? None of them. I wouldn't worry so much that they're capable of manipulating other countries. When you stop worrying about the boogeyman you can start considering that people should have liberties and freedoms, most of which are dangerous and require a great deal of personal responsibility.

It scares me how little people seem to value freedoms as if they were some relic of the past with waning value. History was not advanced on the backs of central planners taking as much control as they could. If you want people to thrive, you empower them, you don't spy on them.