I think that you grossly overestimate both journalism and government, where it regards their respective ethics.
Mainstream journalists, the ones most likely to have access to government officials and processes, are also the ones most co-opted by that system. It is all about access, and the ones who rock the boat too much risk losing it.
As for government, there is a reason why surveillance has always featured prominently in dystopian novels: it is understood by those who have studied the way governments work that they will almost always abuse their power. The power to put a population under surveillance is a kind of control, proportional to the amount it is being done; people understand that when a government is watching them, it is also monitoring potential dissidents and related opinions, organizing, etc.
In short, I'm surprised that anyone would be so willing to trust any government with complete and unhindered powers of surveillance. I wouldn't trust a single non-government entity with that, as it happens.
You said that government monitoring would make you safer, and that privacy was a barrier to the free flow of information. If you don't favour unhindered powers of surveillance, where are you drawing the line, and why should a line be drawn?
Government monitoring might make me safer (if done right).
I would prefer to see a pitch from a government agency with the clear promise of delivery something tangible (lowering agency spending, lowering fraud, improving safety, lowering the rate of false arrests) in exchange for more surveillance.
Then evaluate the pitch and decide.
Then evaluate agency performance in new environment, and decide whether to keep surveillance power (if it was worth it) or take it back (if resulting abuse did not worth the positive outcome) or even dissolving the agency (if it was pure lie).
That can be done incrementally, until increasing surveillance stops producing worthwhile benefits.
Mainstream journalists, the ones most likely to have access to government officials and processes, are also the ones most co-opted by that system. It is all about access, and the ones who rock the boat too much risk losing it.
As for government, there is a reason why surveillance has always featured prominently in dystopian novels: it is understood by those who have studied the way governments work that they will almost always abuse their power. The power to put a population under surveillance is a kind of control, proportional to the amount it is being done; people understand that when a government is watching them, it is also monitoring potential dissidents and related opinions, organizing, etc.
In short, I'm surprised that anyone would be so willing to trust any government with complete and unhindered powers of surveillance. I wouldn't trust a single non-government entity with that, as it happens.