We don't need the governments to mass surveil us to protect us. We need them to sort the economy and stop invading countries and being deferential to corporate interests instead of the people they represent.
It's such an obvious push that If you don't want to see it, it makes me think you're shielding yourself to avoid contending with the reality: These politicians and govs all around, including the countries you claim "work" are absolutely power hungry and beholden to interests other than yours and will push for as much total surveillance as they can, including as much curtailment of freedoms as they can.
Obviously that won't mean elites will actually face justice or crimes will actually be solved because more surveillance is not accompanied with more government transparency, quite the opposite and bigger and more powerful burocracies, with more authoritarianism, allow for easy hidden exceptions that you can't question.
It's nothing new. Corruption is common. It's just mediocre to see "hackers" pushing for it just because the government and corporations tell them to, because foreign country bad, bad social media influences kids, drugs, word-ism, etc.