Why should Levison trust a government who has proven to be untrustworthy when it comes to data collection? Levison didn't lie or mislead anyone, he even offered to get the data for them as long as it was targeted. The government has basically zero credibility in matters like this, and yet he was expected to trust them with no oversight (in the article, he was told there was no independent audit of their use of the data)?
What is this monolithic government you speak of? Are you saying that the FBI and the NSA are synonymous? I'm sure plenty of FBI investigators would take exception to an accusation like that.
I can play this game too. Dread Pirate Roberts used StackExchange, so therefore StackExchange users cannot be trusted to build websites that don't host drug deals and supposed hitmen.
