Good question but truth outs and people are not entirely hopeless

Are Wikileaks and Anonymous Hackers All There Is Left We Can Rely on, with Trust in Business and Government at Rock Bottom? | Media | AlterNet: "More and more, our democracy feels like a Potemkin Village in which we make a grand show of participating in billion-dollar, ad-driven elections only to see our government captured by elites working behind the scenes. The corruption – the legal kind – is so pervasive that most of us simply turn a blind eye to it, helpless to push back."

And when provoked reality bites back.

Global Online Privacy