It may speak more of my cynicism

than of actual ill intent, but
The IRS mess that was 'intolerable' a while back has become a 'phony scandal',
the investigations into Benghazi are heating up again(damn well better),
revelations about NSA/FBI/CIA spying are pissing off more people,
and-
Suddenly!-
the bad guys are making Serious Threats, and embassies have to be shut down, and 'internal security'(i.e. molestation and theft by TSA and abuses by DHS) has to be ramped up to deal with the threats!  And we really NEED that intelligence the NSA gets from reading your mail and chats and listening in to your calls(don't forget DEA)!

Little as ten years ago I'd have never believed I'd be this willing to believe this ill of the .gov.

Oh, you hadn't heard about the DEA?  I hadn't till this morning:
A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.