If governments want to keep spying on people, they need to be upfront and explain why - especially at a time when many already feel they're not being well-served by politicians and leaders.
It's something the former deputy director of the United States' National Security Agency never thought was necessary until the Edward Snowden affair.
Chris Inglis was in the hot seat in 2013 when then-US government contractor leaked classified information about the NSA's surveillance programs.
While the "firestorm" had died down a bit, there's still plenty of scar tissue.
He reckons, 50 years from now, historians will conclude that the agency got the "alignment" between the defence of privacy and pursuit of security "about right".
"What we failed at miserably was explaining that, with sufficient transparency and granularity that people said: 'I understand it, I'm good with that'," he told the National Press Club in Canberra on Thursday.
"Having not done that, when Edward Snowden then came out in the summer of 2013 with his allegations - not necessarily revelations - there wasn't another version of the story."
Incurring upon someone's privacy is a serious matter and unless there's a noble purpose that justifies it and proper constraints applied, it can be a "terrible" thing.
But he likened it to the possession of nuclear weapons.
Most would say it's an inherently bad thing to have such bombs yet would argue the US had a noble purpose and believed in its constraints and controls.
"There has never been a time that we have to be more careful about making sure we communicate to that population about the intent of government, the purposes of government and the constraints and controls that are levied on government," Mr Inglis said.
He warned the private sector was "running unchecked" in that regard - and by design.
"You sign user agreements, you willingly give up the data, but the aggregation of that has stunning consequences," he said.
"There's very few secrets about your life, where you have been, what you have done."
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