I just mentioned on the server earlier this morning that as I was out and about yesterday I saw so many places with huge piles of RATs trying to give them away for free and not seeming to have much luck.
As far as letting stupid governments do monumentally mind numbingly blatantly obviously idiotic things, I think it's more to do with letting oneself be scared to the point of insane stupidity where it's literally impossible to make rational decisions, but can see how a general inability to fathom big numbers would contribute.
From my experience, they were inaccurate anyway :D
But, the government shouldn't be acting out of fear, right? The idea is that they act rationally, because they are the right people to deal with the circumstances. Load of crap, eh?