Were the telcos as a whole keen to cooperate? I suspect it was only a few senior executives hoping for a place in the New Year’s Honour’s list for being “patriotic” ™, and a few of the rank and file who were trusted with the cloak-and-dagger stuff, and perhaps saw it as their way to a senior post.
I am not sure there is an easy way to stop the cosy negotiations in gentlemen’s clubs that lead to this sort of thing, but were Her Majesty to award Edward Snowden a knighthood, it might balance the scales for the whistleblowers a bit. Just sayin’…
