In their political sphere, people care about their wealth (economy), their identity (nationalism, religion) & drama (political scandals). These are pretty constant. They are the bread and butter of politics and have ben since ancient time. When wealth decreases, identity is challenged or political drama whips the mob into a frenzy political instability ensues. So long as those are kept in check, political stability is hard to challenge.
If you look at most big stability events (eg the recent riots and protests in Greece), they relate to these. Wealth & political drama. The US banking crisis related to wealth (recession), drama (evolving doors) and identity (corporate welfarism).
Abstract ideas like freedom (of X), democracy, equality, privacy, justice, do not have political weight in their own right. To make them count politically they need to become one of the things that matter, bundled into the national mythology, people's identity.
The US for all their faults, have a genuinely principled foundational mythology/ideology. They can graft principles like privacy onto those making "privacy" into an identity issue. Government spying is offensive to Americans in the same way (though sadly not to the same degree) as a perceived islamization of the UK to the British. Most major political "principle" issues are really identity issues. That's why nationalism and religion are impossible to exorcise from politics.
Americans seem better positioned to put up a fight against this spying stuff than the rest of us because they already have government-skepticism built into their national identity. Europeans can build onto our 'enlightened" edentate though this is less wieldy. But ultimately I have a hard time believing that any of us will avoid being completely surveilled by several governments. There is too much momentum in that direction.