Only incredible ignorance and lack of perspective could permit this.
Its just criminal activity excused by puerile worldviews shaped by propaganda and elitist 18th century philosophies propagated by powerful thugs.
So most people just don't fully (or even partially) grasp the government's surveillance power right now. The media doesn't help here. The media is supposed to inform people about this, but instead either it doesn't talk too much about it, or if it does, the mainstream media is usually pro-mass surveillance (because the powerful friends of the networks are).
Most of the time the lazy reprints of an AP/Reuters story.would dominate, as expected. Once and a while - usually after a really import release such as COTRAVELER[1] - the story would happen... and then suddenly everybody is talking about Prism and explaining how it is "just metadata". Any momentum the new story had ended was redirected into topics that were already known. There would be small-time media doing proper reporting, of course, but it was clear who the "big media" worked for.
The media following the orders of those that sign their paychecks isn't really news, but it was very interesting to watch it happen in realtime.
[1] I still believe that COTRAVELER is one of the most important thing we have learned from Snowden, as it builds relationship maps and it doesn't rely on the target performing some specific action such as an HTTP requests that QUANTUM can race. Bonus: it only relies on "metadata".
America spies because it wants information it can't otherwise have. What are Russia's plans in Ukraine? Is Pakistan playing both sides re: Taliban? Can China shoot down a B2 bomber? We want to know and nobody and asking won't help.
Why we allow them to be better at their art is obvious.