Western government is a democracy in name only. The US was designed to be so large that no individual can expect to cause a change in its function, even if they organize large protests, or send torrents of mail. You could run for office, but you wouldn't get in, especially not off a platform of "forget national security, let's protect privacy!". Even if you did get in, you still need to organize hundreds of others who also got in to agree with and work towards your goal. Even if the legislative branch implemented your plan, you then need to wait as the executive branch caught up. Note that the NSA/FBI doesn't always work within the law - they are perfectly willing to break a few laws to make their jobs easier. You would have to infiltrate these organization, and instill a new culture that followed your value system. This would entail firing hosts of the leadership, and probably a large quantity of their subordinates, who would still be used to the old mode. This process would, if you took the time to do it correctly, take many more years than you would have to do it.
The system is not only not designed to allow change easily, it is explicitly designed to make it as difficult as possible. The idea is that change shouldn't happen just because someone somewhere said they wanted something, and not enough people disagreed to stop it. Change should only happen when the vast majority of people have thought about it and agreed with it. This system is designed to prevent genocide or other forms of purposeful mass inequality. It is, however, extremely poor at giving an individual rights and freedoms. The assumption is that the individual should already have rights and freedoms, and all the government need do is not remove them. Barring some injunction with the state, an individual can then do whatever they choose.
Capitalism can, when implemented properly (inb4 no true scotsman), act as a true democracy. It can allow each individual person the choice to do what that person chooses, independent of other peoples disagreement - even if the vast majority thinks the decision idiotic. Under our governments form of "democracy", what should an individual do if the majority of people don't want privacy, if those people are against privacy? There is nothing they can do! Whereas, even if everyone else in the world was a hardline supporter of a company like Uber, any individual could make the choice not to use them.