'The internet' is a public communications platform. It is the equivalent of going to a public space and shouting out your personal information.
No it's not. No more than the postal service or phone service is. You do not broadcast your information, you send your information point to point. Either unsecured (postcard), or secured (letter).
When you broadcast your information (youtube comment, Facebook, twitter), then it is public domain as anyone can read it.
No one has any business opening my letters. If it's a 'random check' and nothing comes of it, then notify me the letter has been opened as part of a routine check (some stamp / sticker tape on the package). If it is indeed part of an investigation, I expect to be some accountability and records later on. Same with any form of private communication.
When you go through port customs, there are procedures in place. They can't just go through your stuff and rummage around your vehicle without you at least being present during the search (I know, and I expect it by now, I fit some kind of profile). What I'd want as well, is some acknowledgement of the search in writing. They just put your stuff back in and off you go, like nothing happen (at least on your side).
Them snooping and compiling data based on public information is already questionable and creepy (do you find Facebook or Google creepy, using your public data and usage patterns for business purposes?), but them getting access to private information without any accountability is a violation of individual rights. Requesting data retention from the ISPs is disingenuous. It puts the burden on them to do their dirty work. I don't have, per se, anything against keeping a secured remote record of private history (That's what your email provider does anyway), I just don't trust them to play nice. What's in my inbox or my chat history stays in my inbox or my chat history.
No private company or individual would be allowed to do so, why should government agencies be an exception? They are already an exception and can request access to private content as part of an
investigation. Investigation meaning, there is a history of the records available. Ultimately, the 'accused' has the right to know.
I like to believe that we are leaving in a democracy, and completely sacrificing those basic human rights effectively forever because there is a threat is basically giving in. In that case both party profits, Joe Public just has to stand in the crossfire and shut up.
But Home Secretary Theresa May had said: "If we delay we face the appalling prospect police operations will go dark, that trails will go cold, that terrorist plots will go undetected.
"If that happens, innocent lives may be lost."
Useful Idiots.
. Obviously it would grow year by year but I'm unsure of GCHQs budget I imagine its more than enough. 
