No Mr Michael C
It is you who doesn't understand what you are talking about.
You see, you misunderstood the difference between Gov servant and Gov. Unless you are politician or who is in charge of what really happening, you are just like me, who serve the gov of the day. We cannot break the law ourselves, we are accountable for what we do.
Politicians are above the law, big companies are above the law. Matter of fact, they are the ones who make the law to serve themselves.
The good people you were talking about, are simple slaves who fight to survive. We do what our masters asked for. I never doubt or disagree with you on this point. However, slaves are not in charge with anything. Slaves follow the rules set by masters.
The masters are the ones who do evils. And there is NOTHING you or any one of us can do about it.
Take recent wikileak event as example, why US of A gov in particular hated wikilead so much, that they want to do anything to silent it. Why UK gov follows US command.
In tech sector, name one big company that doesn't do evil.
Tell me, what exactly we as people can do? "They" control everything. The worst part is there is nothing to replace them (you can only replace one politician with another, one greedy CEO with another greedy CEO). We only get different evils who we (as people collectively) serve as our masters. The choice we have, often at best is to choose the less of <insert the number> evils.
People do have power to force the masters' hand. However, people collectively are also too stupid to use this power. People only have power when people are united. Do you see that happens?
People no longer think or take responsibility anymore. People became too selfish, and "no one" will fight for rights anymore. People power or the so called "consumer power" you dreamed about, long ceased to exist.