This. Reducing the size of the security apparatus is a very politically costly move. Politicians sometimes do politically costly things, e.g. Merkel and the refugees, but it really has to be tremendously important for them to do that thing for them to put their political life on the line.<p>Few politicians has hitherto had privacy as their personal favorite value and therefore few politicians has been willing to put his political life on the line for privacy. Anyway, it&#x27;s not a very inspiring thing to care about - some security hawk is probably going to just reverse everything you&#x27;ve done afterwards.