I hear what you're saying, but I think it's a bit of a red herring. The real problem is the abuse, not the topology of the Net/Web.
That is, even if we all ran our own email servers, etc., the government could work with the ISPs to protocol-sniff or otherwise hook into our communications if it had the will. At the end of the day, data must be put on the wire (or in the air). Outlaw encryption above NSA-crackable standards (as they did for exported browsers/software) and away they go. This is not to mention wireless carriers which must be centralized to some extent. At the end of the day, it is not a very practical matter for many of these services to be decentralized, especially for those who are not tech savvy.
And, yes, we could try to evolve technologies which decentralize more of these services for the masses. And, we can hope that endpoint encryption wouldn't be outlawed (in fact, as we now all know, the NSA now claims the right to hold on to encrypted communications indefinitely as it attempts to crack them), but this is not unlike the cat-and-mouse between virus writers and antivirus companies. Stronger encryption would be cracked, data would traverse some centralized conduit, and the government would get the information.
The problem here is not the topology of the network, but the government's intent and its frank violation of our privacy, period. We are a nation of laws, and the government should be constrained, not by the limits of technology, but to the law itself and to both the letter and spirit of our Constitution.
That is, even if we all ran our own email servers, etc., the government could work with the ISPs to protocol-sniff or otherwise hook into our communications if it had the will. At the end of the day, data must be put on the wire (or in the air). Outlaw encryption above NSA-crackable standards (as they did for exported browsers/software) and away they go. This is not to mention wireless carriers which must be centralized to some extent. At the end of the day, it is not a very practical matter for many of these services to be decentralized, especially for those who are not tech savvy.
And, yes, we could try to evolve technologies which decentralize more of these services for the masses. And, we can hope that endpoint encryption wouldn't be outlawed (in fact, as we now all know, the NSA now claims the right to hold on to encrypted communications indefinitely as it attempts to crack them), but this is not unlike the cat-and-mouse between virus writers and antivirus companies. Stronger encryption would be cracked, data would traverse some centralized conduit, and the government would get the information.
The problem here is not the topology of the network, but the government's intent and its frank violation of our privacy, period. We are a nation of laws, and the government should be constrained, not by the limits of technology, but to the law itself and to both the letter and spirit of our Constitution.