There's this generally misguided sense of what "intelligence" means - that spooks are different from you or me. I don't believe it. All sorts of people pass information back to the government in both formal and informal ways, paid and unpaid. Does this make them spies?<p>All this article is saying is that the vast majority of people are so out-to-lunch most of the time that they don't even notice when sketchy stuff is happening right around them. And the very reason this happens has been proved out in the comments - because people don't want to think of themselves as "paranoid loons" or crazy conspiracy theorists.<p>While tech intel is a bit different than the so-called "situational awareness" described in the article, I think we all participate in the intel process in some way (though maybe not directly by talking to the government, but remember how there's no more privacy on the internets?)