This is overly ideological. Agreed that the NSA probably doesn't control the Internet, however the argument that the government does or doesn't control the Internet cannot be assumed either way at this point. We do know the government has desired/requested control of the internet before, the kill switch initiative is well documented. Whether this has actually panned out for the Gov in any concrete way we do not know, and if it did pan out it would probably be classified.

As for 'the little people' being the good guys, that's kind of fundamentally what a democracy implies. Now whether the paranoid HN types really represents the people, or the soccer mom who would scream bloody murder if their family was injured because a terrorist plot went off that 'could' have been stopped with widespread snooping without warrants really represents the people is an entirely different question.