I don't think any of us are saying that these companies want to be participating in programs like PRISM, but it's the fact that they do-- and the extent of what they do--that bothers many people.

Then again, companies already make billions of dollars a year legally selling all kinds of information about you which don't include the actual contents of your emails, files, text messages, etc. and they gleefully do participate in that. Marketers can already create chillingly accurate profiles on people from stuff that is legally available. And those profiles can be bought online by anyone, becoming an "open invitation for corruption," stalking, and so on by ex-boyfriends, co-workers, etc. As far as I know, these services are not allowed in Europe, by the way, due to their privacy laws.

Actually, come to think of it, a company like Google, and just recently Yahoo, already "know" the contents of all of your emails since they actively scan through all of them for marketing purposes and to serve up targeted online ads. Normally, this is all done by computers, but who's to say that a person couldn't tap into that database to pick out nuggets of info to be used for nefarious purposes? Things that look like account logins and passwords in an email? Embarassing photos sent as attachements?

It's very difficult for your average law abiding American to maintain even a modicum of privacy from all the legally collected surveillance without jumping through inconvenient hoops nowadays. And even if you take precautions, unless the people that you interact with also take precautions, your privacy can still be compromised to a surprising extent.