"But, even with that, I wonder which group specifically benefits from the kinds of abuse we see with NSLs and the Aaron Swartz tragedy?"

Good question, example, 'exerecise':

First, Congress passed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA. Why? Drawing from our high level, theoretical explanation, some people with big bucks went to Congress, twisted some arms, crossed some palms, etc. and got the law passed (I'm omitting details, but they are likely not very important to this exercise). Who with the big bucks? Some organizations with computer or Web sites that didn't want to be 'hacked' -- to use the crude meaning of this word common in CFAA discussions. Then when the law was passed, the big bucks people could smile, congratulate each other, go for drinks at some Capitol Hill watering hole and celebrate how much they really stuck it to the 'hackers'.

Second, Swartz writes some scripts or some such, parks a computer in a closet, lets it run, and downloads "millions" of 'documents'. Essentially every file he got is also available for free in any research library in the world or to anyone on the MIT network from JSTOR. And Swartz had no very good way to distribute large numbers of those documents or get paid much for his efforts. And JSTOR had a heart to heart with Aaron who promised not to do that again or some such.

Third, the "millions" was enough to serve as raw meat to some prosecutors in the Boston office of the DoJ. Then the 'case' went forward as in our theory: The prosecutors were already in big gumment too big: That is, long we tried not to have criminal laws at the federal level but to leave such to the states. So, in this sense the CFAA should have been a Massachusetts matter. Next, prosecutors in small, local parts of gumment answer fairly closely to the voters, but the Boston office of the DoJ answers to voters very indirectly or not at all. Next, one of the Boston prosecutors wanted to get publicity to 'move up' in gumment, e.g., run for governor. That in reality her "overreach" would hurt her chances of elected office and maybe even end her career in gumment was lost on her. Instead she was apparently a bit slow between the ears and in the old school of "the law, the law, the letter of the law". Of course the Boston office of the DoJ should have been throttled by the DC DoJ, AG Holder, or even Obama, but was not. Why? One might look at Holder and guess that he wanted to project an image of a tough guy, i.e., show the 'little people' how he and big gumment really are the big boss. And Obama likes to avoid involvement and just "vote present". And Obama can be fairly sure that one case in the Boston DoJ office won't much hurt his reelection chances. Or, the Congress, the Boston office of the DoJ, the FBI, the DoJ itself all have a lot of power, and as we know "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

For the NSLs more generally, those seem to be part of a pattern: Whenever the civil liberty people want to throttle wire tapping, poking holes in our Constitution, etc., lots of gumment police and prosecutors come out of the woodwork and scream that they really need these laws to catch the bad guys. So, the police and prosecutors are always screaming for more power. They really like power: Now police cars have automatic license plate readers and a computer and a wireless connection to do a lookup on the owner of the vehicle and check on, say, the date of the latest state vehicle inspection. No doubt all that electronics in all those police cars costs a lot of money, but apparently the police really like the power. Well, when 9/11 provided an excuse for a lot more police power, the police got a lot more power, and we shot holes in our Constitution. People in big gumment keep grabbing more power. Don't have to be a anti-gumment 'libertarian' to see that big gumment has gotten much more powerful over the last few decades.

Here's an example: We had Secretary of State C. Rice say "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" and her statement that the aluminum tubes were for use in uranium enrichment centrifuges. She got away with both statements; both were taken seriously in the media and, apparently, our political fora. Of course, both statements were, to quote from 'All the President's Men', "total BS". Saddam had made no significant progress to being able to create a "mushroom cloud"; it was easy for nuclear technology experts to confirm that the tubes were not suitable for centrifuges; and the US DoE had already told Rice that. Still, our media and politics are so gullible for stories of threat that her "total BS" was influential. Or, last night I watched again the old James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" about a wacko newspaper mogul who was thrilled to notice "There's no news like bad news." which is much the same as the newsroom standard "If it bleeds, it leads", which some people say rests on some fundamental human psychological vulnerability to too much in fear.

As voters, we are too gullible, too easily led to see holes punched in our Constitution, to see over active big gumment, throwing away blood and treasure, stepping on individual citizens, etc. I say this not as an anti-gumment libertarian but just as someone wanting to see better gumment from less 'overreach' -- the Swartz case, "foreign entanglements", "foreign adventures", etc. I'd take the US Federal gumment back several decades and even there tell the over active state department to take a hike or take a rest.

But, there are people who want to get their hands on big power and, thus, rush to careers in big gumment. The solution is for the voters to say "No". Quite effective is just to cut their budgets. For this solution, key is better information available to voters. I suspect that a lot of the needed information is available but not promulgated by the MSM and their traditional 'journalistic' values. I believe that the Internet can be the source of such information. I hope my startup will help people do better finding what they want ('safe for work') on the Internet and, in particular, do better tracking their gumment, in the US and even outside.