@hattiecat @mikegerwitz

There are a few factors I think:

• Legacy of empire. In the distant past controlling an empire probably meant knowing a lot of things about a lot of people (although not on today's scale). The culture of that among elites may have continued.
• The hegemonic influence of the BBC. Whatever the BBC says most people will consider to be the truth, but in this case it's what they don't say. afaik they have said almost nothing about surveillance and it's not framed as being a problem.
   * General fear of the state. I know from the last few years that even among technical people who know the issues there is a fear of publicly talking about them or being publicly known as a privacy advocate. Why that is I'm not sure, but it may be down to years of demonization of "hackers" or "hacktivists" in the mainstream media.