I suspect there&#x27;s an emotional angle to this that people may not be aware of, either.<p>There are quite a few people active in software engineering today at major companies who grew up with the sci-fi ecosystem of dystopia stories that were relatively prevalent in the &#x27;70s, &#x27;80s, and &#x27;90s. Add into the mix their observations and experiences watching the dotcom boom and bust, the first major cases of the FBI chasing down hackers and trying to deal with the inadequacies of the law to handle that class of crime by redlining all the punishments the law allowed, and the utter ridiculousness that was the war between file sharing systems &#x2F; communities and the RIAA &#x2F; MPAA, and you end up with a culture primed to see themselves as the smart guardians of the common person against abuse by authority. Even though they are the establishment now, they still see themselves as anti-establishment, taking a stand for little people against Big Brother. That&#x27;s not necessarily a true reflection of the world (in many cases, the large software companies can themselves stand accused of being Big Brother), but it&#x27;s the myth they grew up with.<p>And along comes clear and indisputable evidence that their governments have not only the theoretical capacity to mass-harvest data and mass-survey people, they are actually doing it and have actively breached the security infrastructure at the companies these people work for to make it happen. So people in the tech sector are mad. Seething, in fact. We talk of governments metaphorically breaking into people&#x27;s houses, but it&#x27;s not a metaphor for the people whose day-job it is to physically secure their houses---the people the governments have actually physically wiretapped, using Cold War-era techniques, without permission.<p>So if the governments want a war about who owns information, the people who work in the tech sector are excited to give them one.