The reason that it's such a big deal, even if you don't do anything wrong, is that if you do something the government doesn't like, illegal or not, they do everything in their power to take you down. In the past the U.S. government has arrested and destroyed lives of CEOs and others who were not willing to send them their customer's information. Let's say you piss off the government, well they happen to have recorded every phonecall you've ever had, every text message, and every email for quite a while. They use everything they can to scrutinize and cherry pick details out of the things you say. For example, in one text message you were talking to your buddy and you said "The club last night was the bomb". Now the government uses that sentence to say you're a terrorist who planted a bomb in a nightclub. While many people think that it's incredibly silly and who could ever believe such a thing, it does happen, and it will continue to happen. Just take a look at two recently arrested young adults. One of them arrested for making a sarcastic facebook comment, he was talking to someone about league of legends and was called crazy, then makes a sarcastic comment about shooting up a school and eating baby hearts with an lol jk at the end, and he's been arrested. There's also the kid recently arrested for making sarcastic comments in runescape of all places. Someone was being a piece of shit, told him to kill himself, and his reply was basically he would take out everyone in school with him. Despite not having the knowledge, equipment, or capability to even pull it off he gets arrested anyways. I did read a story not too long ago but am unable to find it at the moment where a guy who actually did absolutely nothing wrong, and had nothing to hide, was being mistakenly targeted by the government. From what I remember the guy ended up being in jail for months and was facing up to 8 years in prison or something. Again, the government was cherry picking all of his calls and emails and everything about him to see that he is taken down. Coupled with the fact that people in general are dangerous, shady, and use what power they have as an advantage, do you really think people like that don't exist in the government? I guarantee that there are those in the government who use their spying capabilities for all sorts of reasons. Spy on their girlfriend/wife, neighbor, competition, whoever. Regardless if it's for money or some kind of advantage I have no doubt that happens as well. Edit* Why doesn't the government just let the guy go knowing they fucked up? That's an easy one to answer. The government doesn't apologize because they never think they're wrong, even if they know it. They believe an apology after making a mistake is a sign of weakness and want everyone to think they are and can do whatever they want. On July 3rd 1988 the United States shot down an airliner, Iran Air Flight 655, killing 238 Iranians, 13 Arabs, 10 Indians, 6 Pakistans, 6 Yugoslavians, and 1 Italian, 66 of those people were children. They mistaked the plane for something else and since never apologized.