'The citizens' is referencing the group uniformly. 'Citizens' and 'USG' clearly have a large intersection, but the point is that importance should be distributed throughout the former. That some citizens are bad actors doesn't change this.

I was drawing a parallel with bank security as the same institution-based priorities apply to the NSA. Their version of 'security' primarily involves securing the position of USG and its subsidiaries by monitoring everyone to gain intelligence against possible threats (including the non-criminal threats). This makes the citizens, who should be the most important, less secure.