It's an important life skill, being able to plant a thought in the mind of another and in a way that is likely to be accepted.
It crossed my mind since my last writing that, in the 80s, I got a money back guarantee for any counter-surveillance equipment purchased that didn't reveal surveillance equipment in a Fortune 100 facility. It was that pervasive back then. And my perception is that morals and business ethics have not improved in the interim. Far from it.
Good luck and thanks for the valuable, respectful input.
It predates your story by at least five years, 2007, when a Silicon Valley engineer revealed that a backbone line had been spliced and all traffic was passing to government machines.
That revelation also inspired an outraged public backlash of 'meh.'