My view is that if it were illegal then as soon as it became public knowledge then effort would have been made to stop it. I.e. It's a breakdown of the enforcing of the law but not a breakdown of the democratic process. Instead we've had a couple of years where the only thing any politician ever says is "well it's legal..." which is a breakdown of the democratic process (since the law in a democracy is meant to reflect the will of the people saying that something the people are protesting shouldn't be legal is ok because it's legal is clearly a non argument!)
It does represent the will of the people. The people aren't voting for change and didn't do so when any of the "draconian" laws were passed, despite it being public knowledge. So this is perfectly what democracy is - popular opinion, not special interests determining the laws. If you're sure your fellow citizens are mostly wrong, then you
should reconsider whether you fit in among them. Maybe other countries have people who value privacy greater. For UK citizens this is easy, just go to a European country.
So you're saying the UK government held a vote asking "Do you want to be surveilled?" and a majority of citizens answered in the affirmative? I can't remember anything like that happening here in the US.
